Evidence
Intro to Evidence
Getting to the bottom of issues related to alcohol requires us to look at the facts.
In the U.S., taxpayers support over $400 million in alcohol-related research each year through the NIAAA. Research is also funded by pharmaceutical companies and private sources.
Solid evidence is crucial to understanding how we relate to alcohol. We need to understand how it affects us physiologically, and how genetic and other factors affect us.
The evidence isn’t limited to neurological and other factors beyond our control, though. The evidence points to behavioral, cultural, and personal factors over which we can assert personal control.
And, the evidence doesn’t stand on its own. Studies which suggest correlations — wine drinking correlated to health, for example — really don’t tell us about cause and effect (i.e., wine drinking may not cause better health, but may be related to socioeconomic well-being and thus access to good health care). So, it’s important that we interpret the evidence critically.
We’ll follow these kinds of issues here in the Evidence category.
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