Politics, as a practice, is messy, to say the very least. Its practitioners can be nasty and vengeful, reckless and brash, and self-serving and greedy. All that, among people with conflicting opinions (opinions being the optimal word here), makes for a big mess.

As of my writing of this (it’s mid-June), there are seemingly countless messes being played out in Congress — not to mention the various government agencies. One I’m paying particularly close attention to is the work of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC), which recently presented a new review process for alcohol, raising fears among lobbyists and industry players that it could result in recommendations that Americans cut down on drinking.

Few, I imagine, would step up to a podium and declare they don’t want Americans to be healthy and safe. But here’s the problem: lobbyists and the liquor industry are saying that the recommendations are based on biased research. Traditionally, the DGAC leads the review to develop the guidelines. Now, for the first time, two additional bodies are conducting research and making recommendations.

One of them is the Interagency Coordinating Committee for the Prevention of Underage Drinking (ICCPUD), which falls under the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) at the Department of Health and Human Services. ICCPUD was founded by the Sober Truth on Preventing Underage Drinking Act. Its mission is to “provide resources and information on underage drinking prevention, intervention, treatment, enforcement, and research”. They are the modern-day Carry Nations, an alliance of teetotallers who wield legislation like the turn-of-the-20th-century activist’s hatchet.

The industry purports the additional bodies’ research is not transparent. As such, it might not be in alignment with scientific best practices, as recommending no alcohol goes against decades’ worth of scientific studies showing that moderation is a safe way to consume alcohol. In a 10 June letter, organisations representing distillers, brewers, vintners, distributors, and retailers urge the DGAs to be “developed in a manner that is transparent, fair, and free from bias, and solely based on the preponderance of scientific and medical knowledge, as required by the law”.

There are a few things in this stand-off that make it a non-starter to my mind. If the agency leading the crusade for the review is focused on cracking down on underage drinking, its efforts are misguided by recommending consumption guidelines to adults. They should be designing public health campaigns and initiatives directed at those under 21, the legal drinking age in the US. I’m reminded of a brilliant anti-smoking initiative from a few years ago that showed cool kids being athletic and fun and talking about how categorically uncool smoking is. It felt grounded in shaming smokers, casting them as outcasts and uncool, and while I can’t speak from a teenager’s perspective, it felt impactful.

What’s more, young people are drinking less than their age bracket have in recent years, thanks to a growing awareness in mental health, the increase in all-around ‘clean living’ (see: Sober October and Dry January), and the vast availability of recreational marijuana. That’s not to say that society will automatically correct itself without public nudges, but things seem to be moving in the right direction.

Smokers provide a good example of the futility of warnings. In the US every pack of cigarettes contains the surgeon general’s warnings that smoking causes cancer and other deadly diseases. And yet, smokers gonna smoke. I often question how McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and Burger King get away with no warnings on their packaging or in their stores. The health risks of factory meat and fried foods are incontrovertible, as are their ties to the rates of heart disease and diabetes in the western world. Still, it’s hard to imagine a health warning at a McDonald’s counter will send anyone out the door. If alcohol makers are legally required to remind the public about the importance of moderation, why isn’t the fast-food industry required to do the same?