Community
Print
A doctors’ group has filed a lawsuit over the “industry-influenced” US dietary guidelines.
In a new lawsuit, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) claims that a “secret panel” of “meat, dairy, and fad diet industry insiders” was hired to “ghostwrite” the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA).
Read more: One Dead And Hundreds Ill As UKHSA Declares National Salmonella Outbreak
PCRM filed the lawsuit with the US District Court for the District of Columbia on August 19, 2026. It alleges that the defendants, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Agriculture (USDA), “unlawfully disregarded basic Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) requirements, and, in turn, put the health of Americans at risk, all in the service of special interests.”
FACA notably specifies that an advisory committee “will not be inappropriately influenced by the appointing authority or any special interest.” According to the lawsuit, eight of the nine members of the “hastily assembled” secret panel behind the updated DGAs had conflicts of interest, including financial ties to the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the National Dairy Council, the American Egg Board, the National Pork Board, and the low-carb diet industry.
‘Money in [the] industry’s pocket and cholesterol in Americans’ arteries’
PCRM’s lawsuit asks the court to order the HHS and USDA to withdraw the dietary guidelines and to forbid the two agencies from using them in any future decisions.
“The government allowed the meat and dairy industries to ghostwrite the Dietary Guidelines,” said Dr Neal Barnard, the president of PCRM. “They put money in [the] industry’s pocket and cholesterol in Americans’ arteries.”
The updated US dietary guidelines were published in January under the influence of US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Junior, known as RFK Jr. The guidelines feature an inverted food pyramid that places high-impact red meat and dairy alongside vegetables and fruit as the most important nutrient groups. The update conflicts with almost all reputable health messaging and has been widely criticized.
Read more: Leading Heart Health Organization Says Eat More Plant Protein, Not Meat
More plants, less meat
In December 2024, after nearly three years of transparent, evidence-based work, the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) concluded that eating more plant proteins and fewer animal products would support Americans’ health.
The USDA and HHS disregarded these findings and instead prioritized nutrition advice from the newly created Scientific Foundation to publish the updated DGAs. That second, pro-meat review was reportedly put together in just three months.
In March, over 200 doctors and nutrition researchers called for a return to science-based DGAs in an open letter to RFK Jr and Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. The signatories wrote, “The majority of the Scientific Foundation’s evidence reviews were narrative reviews, largely authored by one person.
“Given that the majority of authors had relevant conflicts of interest and were largely reviewing the scientific literature in a non-systematic way, the risk of bias across the Scientific Foundation’s reviews is much higher compared to the DGAC’s reviews.”
PBN runs a sponsored content model. To explore how you can get featured, please email [email protected] or visit everkinddigital.com
