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Pro-Industry Author Recommends Drinking, Fails to Disclose Conflict of Interest

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Created: Monday, January 26 2015 16:37
January 28, 2015

A pathologist with longstanding ties to the alcohol industry has published recommendations for doctors to advise patients who abstain from alcohol to start drinking, and to drink regularly. The author, Emanuel Rubin, did not provide a statement disclosing his conflict of interest and association with the alcohol industry. This, despite the journal's clear author guidelines requiring disclosure of any potential conflict of interest.

Rubin's recommendation for physicians to instruct adult patients to drink moderately is both premature, as well as unsupported by the preponderance of alcohol research. The myriad risks of alcohol consumption, including liver disease, stroke, increased risk of injury, and cancer, do not support a recommendation for nondrinkers to start drinking regularly. Even typically industry-friendly publications are questioning Rubin's recommendations.

Rubin currently serves as a consultant to the Medical Advisory Board of the Alcohol Beverage Medical Research Foundation (ABMRF), an organization funded by and associated with, beer producers and related trade groups. He has been a consultant for ABMRF since 1992. ABMRF has also funded multiple past projects of Rubin's designed to identify benefits of alcohol consumption; published articles describing those studies are also missing conflict of interest statements.



Orange County, CA Effort Defeats Local Movie Theater Alcohol Sales

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Created: Tuesday, January 27 2015 10:39
January 28, 2015


Opponents of the theater's application to serve alcohol
on the premises gather petition signatures outside.
A group of Orange County residents just won their fight against a Regal Entertainment Group theater in their neighborhood, successfully opposing the application for an on-sale alcohol license that began in August 2014. The Aliso Viejo City Council voted 4-1 to deny the alcohol license, after council members visited theaters serving alcohol and concluded that the local, family-oriented theater was an inappropriate venue for alcohol sales.

What worked? Residents set up a website to inform the public of the proposed license and its potential impact; attended City Council meetings and voiced opposition to the license; organized demonstrations in front of the theater; and gathered signatures online and in-person to oppose license. The opposition involved youth at various levels of organizing and did it all within a short period of time.

The group's victory is an exciting example of grassroots organizing that beats back corporate interests, gets effective alcohol policies enacted, and provides a model for community resistance to the alcohol industry.


KY Bill Would Protect State's 3-Tier System

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Created: Monday, January 26 2015 13:50
January 28, 2015

Kentucky House Speaker Greg Stumbo (D-Prestonsburg) has introduced a new bill to prevent alcohol producers, distributors, and retailers from owning operating licenses in more than one level of the state's 3-tier system. HB168 comes in response to Anheuser-Busch InBev's November acquisition of a beer distributorship in Owensboro, Kentucky. Despite substantial opposition from local and out-of-state brewers, distributors, and public health advocates, state alcohol regulators were ordered  to grant the license to A-B InBev in November.

Several other states, including KY border states Ohio and Illinois, have passed legislation to prevent Big Alcohol from buying more distributors. A-B InBev continues to seek vertigal integration of the 3-tier system on a variety of fronts, including recent purchase craft brewers such as 10 Barrel (Oregon) and Elysian (Washington State). With its acquisition of Elysian brewing that included 4 popular Seattle brewpubs, A-B InBev gets to circumvent the system and act as producer, distributor, and retailer.

Click here for Alcohol Justice legislative activity.




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