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    New alcohol-advertising research stopped with NIH branch director’s arrival

    Under George Koob's leadership, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has stepped back from supporting policy-related research, according to three scientists who do such work.
    by Sharon Begley and Andrew Joseph Apr 04, 2018 5 minutes
    George Koob became director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in 2014.

    The branch of the National Institutes of Health that studies alcohol abuse has not funded any new research by outside scientists specifically on the effects of alcohol advertising since its current director took over in 2014, according to a STAT analysis of grants.

    At least seven such studies were funded in the decade before George Koob became director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in 2014. No new grants have been awarded since.

    An NIAAA spokesman denied that the institute’s priorities have changed. Koob “has maintained the Institute’s long-standing strategic areas of focus,” the spokesman said, and NIAAA support of research on “epidemiology and prevention, treatment, metabolism and health effects, and neuroscience and behavior have remained at the same level that they were.” He added that “behavioral and social science research to prevent and reduce alcohol misuse remains an Institute research priority.”

    STAT Monday that Koob

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