Trump and RFK Jr. Just Nuked 35 Years Worth of Alcohol Dietary Guidance Overnight

In a move that will have alcohol industry executives world over raising a toast tonight, the Trump administration’s newly released Dietary Guidelines for Americans document all but totally abdicates any responsibility the government has for advising Americans how much the scientific consensus says they should probably drink. It’s a stunning reversal of three and a half past decades of guidance, which always ultimately came back to the central tenet that Americans were recommended to consume alcohol in “moderation,” defined roughly as no more than two “standard drinks” a day for men, and no more than one for women. This is a huge (and somewhat unexpectedly decisive) victory for the alcohol industry and its lobbyists, who managed to successfully repress negative studies about the health impacts of alcohol in the lead-up to the crafting of these new guidelines, which are traditionally refreshed every five years. Indeed, the thing that immediately strikes you, reading the new dietary guidelines section on alcohol, is that it’s incredibly short and lacking in any detail, consisting of all of three sentences. Here’s the entire thing!

Previous iterations of the dietary guidelines not only gave more specific guidance as to how much the average person should drink, whether they were male or female–which the new report makes no distinction about at all–but they also went into more details about the risks that have been scientifically determined to be linked with alcohol. Warnings about alcohol increasing the risk of breast cancer have been part of the dietary guidelines for 25 years, and even the original 1980 version of the document–which recommends pregnant women limit themselves to “two ounces” of booze per day, among other things–includes warnings that alcohol is associated with conditions such as cirrhosis, neurological disorders and cancer of the throat and neck. As recently as 2020’s version of the dietary guidelines, they warned that even moderate drinking could increase the risk of cancer and higher overall risk of dying, and former Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy even called for putting cancer warning labels on alcoholic beverages, as we do with cigarettes. That’s quite a history for the new guidelines to completely ignore, not using the word “cancer” and suggesting in very vague terms that people “consume less alcohol for better overall health.”

Speaking at a press conference and flanked by RFK Jr., failed Senate candidate/current head of Medicare and Medicaid, Mehmet Oz, offered an amusingly contradictory speech on alcohol’s great social zbenefits, while also telling people they probably shouldn’t drink it. But also, booze is just really cool, and you’ll look cool drinking it with friends, so maybe you should?

“So, alcohol is a social lubricant that brings people together,” Oz said to reporters. “In the best-case scenario, I don’t think you should drink alcohol, but it does allow people an excuse to bond and socialize. And there’s probably nothing healthier than having a good time with friends in a safe way. If you look at the blue zones for example, where people live the longest, alcohol is sometimes part of their diet. Again, it’s small amounts, taken very judiciously, and usually in a celebratory fashion. So there is alcohol on these dietary guidelines, but the implication is don’t have it for breakfast.”

Beyond that banger of a closing line, and the reference to the life-giving properties of “blue zones” that may turn out to be largely the result of poor age-reporting, you’ve got to love the way Oz bounces back and forth between “We know that scientifically, alcohol isn’t good for you,” and “But there’s probably nothing healthier” than having a great time at the bar with your pals. That’s not contradictory or confusing guidance at all! Considering the recently slashed vaccine recommendation schedule from RFK Jr.’s team, he’s effectively making the argument that booze is less dangerous than vaccines, because at least booze is a “social lubricant.” Nobody ever says that about a COVID shot, right?

Oz: “Alcohol is a social lubricant that brings people together. In the best case scenario, I don’t think you should drink alcohol, but it does allow people an excuse to bond and socialize and there’s probably nothing healthier than having a good time with friends in a safe way.”

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) Jan 7, 2026 at 11:54 AM

So, who was it that crafted these new guidelines, which shape the recommendations for foods served throughout the U.S. at schools, hospitals, military bases, prisons, federal assistance programs and beyond? RFK Jr. has criticized the expert committee employed by the prior Biden administration in crafting the last set of dietary guidelines, saying that the people on said committee were influenced too heavily be food and drink industries. He responded by forming his own handpicked committee of experts who … also appear to be heavily in the pocket of food and drink industries. The New York Times reports that two of the members of the committee have received funding from or have been advisors to the beef and dairy industries (both more heavily recommended in the new guidelines), while another worked with Kraft and Nestle. Perhaps predictably, the guidelines favor the high-fat, high-protein diet that RFK Jr. has been pushing for years, being riddled with more contradictions: For instance, the new guidelines leave the overall saturated fat recommendation unchanged, even as they suggest that Americans prioritize types of food such as red meat, full-fat dairy, butter and beef tallow that are full of saturated fat. So you’re not supposed to up the amount of saturated fat in your diet, but you are supposed to eat far more foods with high levels of saturated fat. You got that? The guidelines also fail to do things like offer a definition for ultra-processed foods, despite RFK Jr. consistently targeting them.

As for the question of alcohol, the most fascinating thing here is the way that after 35 years of attempting to give Americans an up-to-date recommendation of the healthiest way to interact with alcohol, the second Trump administration has more or less abandoned even making an attempt, while going out of its way to ignore the most recent scientific literature and studies on the subject. In September, reporting came to light that the Department of Health and Human Services had withdrawn a government report from consideration by RFK Jr.’s handpicked committee that was particularly critical of any level of alcohol consumption. That research report, the Alcohol Intake and Health Study, warned that even a single drink per day would result in increases to the risk of various cancers and cirrhosis, but DHHS stepped in to effectively kill the report before it would be submitted to Congress. Instead, a competing report was allowed to be sent from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, which had much different (and more positive) conclusions about the health impact of moderate drinking. The fact that members of that competing panel had financial ties to the alcohol industry is probably just a very random coincidence.

At the end of the day, what this amounts to is the lobbyists of the alcohol industry scoring a major triumph, at a time when the industry isn’t doing so hot, considering that self-reported drinking rates are at record lows. Personally, I’m a huge alcohol geek and cocktail obsessive, even if I may be one trudging through my second Dry January as I reevaluate what my own relationship with alcohol should be like on the doorstep of my 40s. But even though I love ethanol as a substance, and love the culture of both drinking, brewing and spirits production, I’m simultaneously alarmed to see the federal government kowtowing to alcohol manufacturers and neglecting its responsibility to offer guidance, grounded in the latest peer-reviewed science, to the drinking public. The citizens of the United States DESERVE ACCURATE MEDICAL AND NUTRITIONAL GUIDANCE to base their own decisions upon. That would be guidance featuring actual, concrete numbers, instead of the pathetically vague language of “maybe drink less, for your health.”

A government is supposed to at least make an attempt to offer accurate information, backed by science, to its population, in order to achieve the best health outcomes. People will ultimately decide for themselves whether or not they want to tilt back a tipple, as they’ve always done, but RFK Jr. and company are failing the American people by not outfitting them with the facts that are available for them to share, given the supposed legitimacy of coming from government health experts. These dietary guidelines don’t even bother to take a stance–and taking a stance is their only reason for existing in the first place.