I don't trust the government to ascribe what is most healthy for you correctly. I trust them to have views that are influenced by puritans and by lobbyists.

Yeah but you have to read what academics write and what the government or your family doctor says very differently. An academic study is going to look at the hard numbers and tell it like it is. Those studies are usually meant to be read by other academics. What your doctor tells you--or in this case, the CDC--is influenced by human nature. Your doctor knows the study about how having three drinks isn't unhealthy. But if she tells her patients that it's OK to have three drinks per day, many of them are going to think, "Well six drinks must be really good then!" So they go the puritan route. It's not out of malice or judgement; it's purely hedging against knuckleheads. One of my good buddies who's an ER physician told me once that in his profession when you ask patients how often have sex (men especially), you divide the number by three, and when you ask how much they drink, you multiply!