Alcohol healthy: The flip-flop on whether it's good for you is easy to understand—if you know who's behind it.

In 1991 an academic debate spilled out of ivory towers and into the popular imagination. “Mainstream scientific opinion has flipped,” said Tim Stockwell, a professor at the University of Victoria who was on the expert panel that rewrote Canada’s guidance on alcohol and health. According to Marion Nestle, the NYU professor who has studied industry influence in nutrition science, “It’s more complicated than bribery.” In the case of drinking, it is not fair to say that Big Alcohol’s money always results in a slew of outright favorable research, according to a 2015 analysis by Jim McCambridge, chair in Addictive Behaviours and Public Health at the University of York. The important thing to the NIAAA is helping people with addiction; the rest of us just needed to, as the industry tag line puts it, “drink responsibly.” The industry triumphed in reframing the debate because it tapped into an even deeper cultural tension than an argument over alcohol’s health risks and benefits. Alcohol, especially wine, has basked in the warm glow of what industry insiders call a “health halo.” Consumers not only think it’s relatively harmless but also actively beneficial.