All of the authors are with the Department of Health Sciences, University of York, York, UK.
Am J Public Health. 2020 Apr;110(4):485-488. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2019.305508. Epub 2020 Feb 20.
The National Institutes of Health stopped the worldwide Moderate Alcohol and Cardiovascular Health (MACH) trial in 2018 because of institutional failings that led to the biased design of this major study. Drawing on e-mail correspondence among officials, researchers, and alcohol companies, we provide the first, to our knowledge, detailed analysis of alcohol industry involvement in the MACH trial.Alcohol companies agreed to fund the MACH trial to advance their commercial interests rather than to help answer a major scientific question. Alcohol industry executives seized opportunities presented by discussions of the MACH trial to try to influence this study and wider public health, research, and policy decision-making.The process of soliciting research funding from corporations, which included convincing alcohol companies that the study design supported their commercial interests, was intrinsically biased. Thus, the three parties-research funding officials, researchers, and industry executives-coproduced the biased trial design. A detailed understanding of this episode will be helpful in advancing efforts to protect public health research from biases associated with corporate donations.
美国国立卫生研究院（NIH）于 2018 年停止了全球中等量饮酒与心血管健康（MACH）试验，原因是该试验存在机构性缺陷，导致这项重要研究的设计存在偏见。我们通过官员、研究人员和酒精公司之间的电子邮件往来，提供了业内首次对酒精行业参与 MACH 试验的详细分析。
酒精公司同意资助 MACH 试验，是为了推进其商业利益，而不是为了帮助回答一个重大的科学问题。酒精行业高管抓住 MACH 试验讨论带来的机会，试图影响这项研究以及更广泛的公共卫生、研究和政策决策制定。
从公司那里寻求研究资金的过程本身就存在偏见，包括让酒精公司相信研究设计支持他们的商业利益。因此，三方——研究资金官员、研究人员和行业高管——共同促成了这项有偏见的试验设计。详细了解这一事件将有助于努力保护公共卫生研究免受与企业捐款相关的偏见的影响。
