The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) is suing the USDA and HHS, accusing the two government agencies of handpicking a “secret panel” of industry insiders, who then illegally influenced the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA).
The lawsuit filed on Aug. 19 in the US District Court for the District of Columbia argues that USDA and HHS unlawfully disregarded requirements under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), which mandates a transparent process for establishing the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC), a panel that issues an advisory report on the guidelines.
PCRM has argued that the report was illegally altered by industry insiders. One day after the Jan. 7 release, the organization, which represents about 17,000 doctor members, filed a petition with the Office of Inspector General of both the USDA and HHS to have the guidelines recalled.
Neither the HHS nor USDA responded to requests for comment on the lawsuit.
Industry insiders claim
Similar to the petition, the lawsuit argues that HHS and USDA handpicked a secret panel with no notice to the public. The new panel then recommended alterations to the guidelines due to dissatisfaction with original DGAC’s recommendations, which had “purportedly ‘framed its analysis through a health equity lens.’”
“After a lengthy and transparent public process, including nearly two years of open hearings and thousands of public comments, the DGAC’s 20 independent nutrition experts issued the DGAC’s findings in the Scientific Report of the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee,” according to the lawsuit. “But instead of issuing Dietary Guidelines on an internal review of the DGAC Report as had been the longstanding practice, defendants, without any oversight or public input, hastily assembled a handpicked panel of meat, dairy and fad diet industry insiders (“secret panel”) for the purpose of attacking the FACA-compliant DGAC Report.”
The “secret panel’s” report placed an unexpected emphasis on fats, meat and dairy products, according to PCRM.
The PCRM has advocated for a plant-based diet to lower the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity and other health conditions.
Red meat recommendation
The dietary guidelines received criticism across the US for a variety of recommendations in the report that some experts argued were a handout to various food industry interests.
The recommendation calling for animal protein at every meal, drew some of the harshest criticism, though.
The Plant Based Foods Association released a response to the guidelines, noting that they failed to reflect DGAC’s recommendations, “particularly with respect to the role of plant-forward dietary patterns in supporting health across the lifespan.”
Nonprofit organization Food System Innovations similarly criticized the guidelines, noting the “erosion of evidence-based policymaking” in the US.
“The document lacks the rigor expected of federal guidance and appears to prioritize ideology and industry influence over public health,” said Max Elder, CEO of Food System Innovations. “Treating it as a serious policy framework is a fool’s errand, and that’s especially tragic given the current state of the American diet.”
Quid pro quo?
PCRM argue that eight of the nine members of the handpicked panel have ties to various sectors of the food and beverage industry, including “the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the National Dairy Council, the American Egg Board, the National Pork Board, and the low-carbohydrate diet industry.”
The 90-page report was assembled over the course of three months, and the names of the panel members were not revealed until the day the DGA was released to the public.
“More than half of the secret panel members also have relationships with organizations associated with USDA’s Checkoff programs, which promote food commodities without regard to their ill health effects and are statutorily prohibited from ‘influencing governmental policy or action’ such as the Dietary Guidelines,” the lawsuit adds.
