NIAAA

Media Praise Study that Excludes Data, Misuses Government HIV Research Grant
By Alatheia Larsen | October 7, 2015 | 4:29 PM EDT

Media outlets conveniently seized upon a study claiming to show higher alcohol taxes reduced drunken-driving deaths, but ignored problems with the study including its funding.

In April 2015, the media, including The Washington Post, covered a University of Florida study funded in part by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The study evaluated automobile accident fatalities involving alcohol between 2001 and 2011, and claimed a reduction in deaths after 2009 was caused by a several-cent increase in alcohol excise tax in 2009.

CBS Hypes Misleading Government Alcohol Study
By Mike Ciandella | March 27, 2014 | 5:25 PM EDT

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) recently published a new report that not only misled, but was completely unnecessary. And CBS repeated it rather than criticize its irrelevancy.

The NIAAA study claimed that the number of alcohol related deaths has been vastly under-reported. However, this was misleading. A separate government agency NIAAA agrees with has been publishing the correct number of deaths for years, and media outlets have been using that correct data. So the new taxpayer study went looking for a problem that wasn’t there.