http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/06/nih-pulls-plug-controversial-alcohol-trial

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, today killed a controversial clinical study that was already on life support: the Moderate Alcohol and Cardiovascular Health (MACH) trial.

A working group of NIH advisers assembled to review the study found that senior officials at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) actively and secretively courted the alcohol industry to fund the $100 million project, and saw to it that a favored principal investigator won the funding. NIH Director Francis Collins this morning called the conduct “way outside of the acceptable culture of our noble institution” and, following the working group’s recommendation, ordered the study shut down “as quickly as that can be done.”