Physician group sues Trump administration over dietary guidelines process
StatNews reports:
By Isabella Cueto
“WASHINGTON — A lawsuit filed Wednesday with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia alleges federal agencies improperly rewrote the nation’s dietary guidelines.
The suit, brought by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a nonprofit that advocates for plant-based diets, claims the Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Agriculture used a “secret panel” of scientists backed by the beef and dairy industries to flip the food pyramid. It also alleges the government disregarded federal law that dictates how advisory committees function.”
“Most of the researchers handpicked by the Trump administration to work on the scientific basis of new guidelines had financial ties to beef, dairy, egg, and other interests. They were chosen behind closed doors and given less than three months to finalize a review of the evidence, which was used to justify new dietary advice, STAT previously reported. That review at times relied on industry-funded science.”
““The government allowed the meat and dairy industries to ghostwrite the Dietary Guidelines,” Neal Barnard, a physician and the group’s president, said in a press release. “They put money in industry’s pocket and cholesterol in Americans’ arteries.”
The lawsuit asks the court to order the guidelines be withdrawn and a new guidelines process — one that follows requirements laid out in the Federal Advisory Committee Act — be initiated.”
HHS and USDA worked together last year to update the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The result was an upside-down food pyramid and accompanying guidelines that “embrace saturated fats, halve the recommended fruit and vegetable servings, remove daily alcohol intake limits, and promote fad diets,” the lawsuit says.
“Many in the nutrition world were perplexed by the focus on foods like beef, whole milk, cheese and eggs, which contain high amounts of saturated fats, even as dietary guidelines recommended limiting saturated fat consumption.
The new guidance also went against the findings of a 20-person scientific panel that had spent nearly two years reviewing the latest nutrition science, and recommended plant-based diets. Those advisers said eating red meat and saturated fats should be discouraged. (Nine of the 20 had relevant conflicts of interest, according to the watchdog group U.S. Right to Know.)
The lawsuit alleges the government broke the law when it disregarded the findings of that earlier dietary guidelines committee, which was assembled under President Biden, and followed FACA rules.
The public was not aware of the secondary science group formed under Trump, or how it conducted its work, until a “scientific foundation” document appeared on a government website on Jan. 7 — the day the new guidelines were released.”
Excerpt From
“Physician group sues Trump administration over dietary guidelines process”
Isabella Cueto
STAT
https://apple.news/AIjzZS_MeQbek38sLP8O57w
This material may be protected by copyright.
My comments:
Just as Robert F. Kennedy, Jr has abandoned decades of scientific evidence and clinical experience with vaccines, so now has he felt empowered and entitled to disrupt dietary guidelines. Not based on evidence; rather to give a financial boost to the beef and dairy industries.
Kennedy is uniquely unqualified for the position Donald Trump nominated him for and for which the Republican Senators unanimously approved and confirmed him. In a matter of several months, Americans watched in horror as he mismanaged an outbreak of measles in Texas (and surrounding states) and never organized a push to immunize the susceptible with the highly effective, safe, readily available, and inexpensive MMR vaccine! To make matters even worse, he advocated an “alternate” regime of “chicken soup, castor oil, and Vitamin A supplements.” His alternate treatment saw young children admitted to Texas hospitals with hypervitaminosis A—a dangerous and potentially fatal condition which is not an effective treatment for measles.
That was just the first of a whole host of radical policies and changes he made; none of which were evidence based and none of which have demonstrated any positive results. Quite the contrary: the damage he has done in less than two years will continue to harm and kill for generations to come. It is inconceivable that he is still leading HHS!
And now, Kennedy—who fancies himself an expert on nutrition just as he does medicine (neither of which he has any legitimate credentials in)—has now brought his ignorance to the field of nutrition. And again he has gotten it all wrong.
By Isabella Cueto
“WASHINGTON — A lawsuit filed Wednesday with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia alleges federal agencies improperly rewrote the nation’s dietary guidelines.
The suit, brought by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a nonprofit that advocates for plant-based diets, claims the Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Agriculture used a “secret panel” of scientists backed by the beef and dairy industries to flip the food pyramid. It also alleges the government disregarded federal law that dictates how advisory committees function.”
“Most of the researchers handpicked by the Trump administration to work on the scientific basis of new guidelines had financial ties to beef, dairy, egg, and other interests. They were chosen behind closed doors and given less than three months to finalize a review of the evidence, which was used to justify new dietary advice, STAT previously reported. That review at times relied on industry-funded science.”
““The government allowed the meat and dairy industries to ghostwrite the Dietary Guidelines,” Neal Barnard, a physician and the group’s president, said in a press release. “They put money in industry’s pocket and cholesterol in Americans’ arteries.”
The lawsuit asks the court to order the guidelines be withdrawn and a new guidelines process — one that follows requirements laid out in the Federal Advisory Committee Act — be initiated.”
HHS and USDA worked together last year to update the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The result was an upside-down food pyramid and accompanying guidelines that “embrace saturated fats, halve the recommended fruit and vegetable servings, remove daily alcohol intake limits, and promote fad diets,” the lawsuit says.
“Many in the nutrition world were perplexed by the focus on foods like beef, whole milk, cheese and eggs, which contain high amounts of saturated fats, even as dietary guidelines recommended limiting saturated fat consumption.
The new guidance also went against the findings of a 20-person scientific panel that had spent nearly two years reviewing the latest nutrition science, and recommended plant-based diets. Those advisers said eating red meat and saturated fats should be discouraged. (Nine of the 20 had relevant conflicts of interest, according to the watchdog group U.S. Right to Know.)
The lawsuit alleges the government broke the law when it disregarded the findings of that earlier dietary guidelines committee, which was assembled under President Biden, and followed FACA rules.
The public was not aware of the secondary science group formed under Trump, or how it conducted its work, until a “scientific foundation” document appeared on a government website on Jan. 7 — the day the new guidelines were released.”
Excerpt From
“Physician group sues Trump administration over dietary guidelines process”
Isabella Cueto
STAT
https://apple.news/AIjzZS_MeQbek38sLP8O57w
This material may be protected by copyright.
My comments:
Just as Robert F. Kennedy, Jr has abandoned decades of scientific evidence and clinical experience with vaccines, so now has he felt empowered and entitled to disrupt dietary guidelines. Not based on evidence; rather to give a financial boost to the beef and dairy industries.
Kennedy is uniquely unqualified for the position Donald Trump nominated him for and for which the Republican Senators unanimously approved and confirmed him. In a matter of several months, Americans watched in horror as he mismanaged an outbreak of measles in Texas (and surrounding states) and never organized a push to immunize the susceptible with the highly effective, safe, readily available, and inexpensive MMR vaccine! To make matters even worse, he advocated an “alternate” regime of “chicken soup, castor oil, and Vitamin A supplements.” His alternate treatment saw young children admitted to Texas hospitals with hypervitaminosis A—a dangerous and potentially fatal condition which is not an effective treatment for measles.
That was just the first of a whole host of radical policies and changes he made; none of which were evidence based and none of which have demonstrated any positive results. Quite the contrary: the damage he has done in less than two years will continue to harm and kill for generations to come. It is inconceivable that he is still leading HHS!
And now, Kennedy—who fancies himself an expert on nutrition just as he does medicine (neither of which he has any legitimate credentials in)—has now brought his ignorance to the field of nutrition. And again he has gotten it all wrong.
