A physician group filed a lawsuit against HHS and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), alleging that the government botched the most recent dietary guidelines.
The suit was brought by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit founded in 1985 that advocates for plant-based diets and alternatives to animal-based research. The group has a long history of using legal pressure to further their goals.
In their legal complaint, PCRM argues that HHS and USDA assembled a "secret panel" that was "rife with conflicts of interest" and did not follow the long-established process for updating the guidelines.
Ultimately, the group is asking that the court withdraw the current guidelines and issue new ones that follow a process that is compliant with the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA).
"The government allowed the meat and dairy industries to ghostwrite the Dietary Guidelines," PCRM President Neal Barnard, MD, said in a press release. "They put money in industry's pocket and cholesterol in Americans' arteries."
