But we do know. The article mentions those mendelian randomization studies. They give us plenty of evidence that the proposed study would hurt those who were ra

But we do know. The article mentions those mendelian randomization studies. They give us plenty of evidence that the proposed study would hurt those who were randomly told to drink more than they otherwise would - even if they just drank as much as the study's designers wanted. And that's a big assumption. Alcohol is addictive. How many times do you hear of people drinking a lot less than they planned to on a night out? Indeed, this extremely obvious fact is why there hasn't been an RCT for alcohol before. It's not that the idea hasn't occurred to anyone, it's that would-be reseachers have thought "no way would we get that past an ethics committee". So what has changed? Well, it looks like this Mukamal guy lives in an extremely friendly regulatory climate. They're so friendly, in fact, that they go out of their way to shoo him in as their researcher, seek funding from the alcohol industry, and try to conceal the whole thing! If there's any group that might be willing to overlook the extremely obvious ethics issues of running a RCT telling people to drink, looks like it's the NIAAA!