USDA "fails to conform to the standards of evidence-based medicine" page

[Lewis]

A special article published today in the journal Nutrition sharply criticizes the recent Report of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC). Authors Hite et al. argue the Report fails to conform to the standards of evidence-based medicine, despite its claimed reliance on a newly created USDA Nutrition Evidence Library. The authors call the DGAC to task for failing to consider recent scientific results while at the same time further confusing the American public. ...

Hite et al. explain that, in fact, nutrient consumption in the past thirty years has consistently moved in the direction of the Guidelines' recommendations for carbohydrate and fat, while calorie consumption has stayed within suggested ranges. At the same time, the rates of obesity and Type 2 Diabetes have skyrocketed. ...

In suggesting the need for an entirely new process, Richard David Feinman, Professor of Cell Biology at SUNY Downstate Medical Center said, "The previous Guidelines have not worked well. It is simply unreasonable to ask the DGAC to audit its own work. An external panel of scientists with no direct ties to nutritional policy would be able to do a more impartial evaluation of the data. ...

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releas...-pdg100110.php


There's a TV news interview with Professor Feinman, in which he says that the "Food Pyramid"

"ignores the science"

and that:

"the committee are actually hiding this information"

(i.e. they're hiding what we know about nutrition from science)


http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/mornings/...delines-071410

[lcme]

The "Nutrition" article was actually posted yesterday
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/forum...ience-and-bias

The acticle is a free full-text so you should check it out.
http://www.nutritionjrnl.com/article...02893/fulltext

Thanks for the link to the video.

[Lewis]

The "Nutrition" article was actually posted yesterday

Whoops! You can tell I browse here a bit rather than reading systematically.

The acticle is a free full-text so you should check it out.
http://www.nutritionjrnl.com/article...02893/fulltext

Oh, I'd never have expected that. Thank you very much.

Thanks for the link to the video.

Interesting, isn't it? He's not particularly articulate, but some of those comments of his there are dynamite. I don't know whether he means to imply that there's deliberate deceit there, but that's what his words are literally saying. That's amazing. He seems to be saying that that's because people who've given the wrong advice don't want now to change in face of the evidence, because that would mean loss of face. I think one would have to wonder if the USDA had been "ignoring the science" because it was actually serving producer interests. But maybe Feinman is right there: I could well imagine people giving advice they knew might be dangerous rather than face that they may have got things totally backwards and hence lose face. It doesn't say much for some people's level of honesty (or concern for others), does it? One could get very cynical about human nature, if one hadn't come across people who do take truth, honesty, and duties to others very seriously.

[MariaNYC]

I was excited to watch this video, but must say that Feinman was pretty disappointing. Not particularly articulate, indeed. I think he really could've said so much more by referencing some actual statistics from his own research. Oh well. And thanks for linking

[Leanne]

It is very hard for some people to get up and admit "I was wrong".

I can only imagine for many researchers/doctors out there this is even more difficult to say when all their educational institutions, degrees, research funding etc lean towards supporting big agro and the pharmaceutical industries.

[lcme]

It is very hard for some people to get up and admit "I was wrong".

I can only imagine for many researchers/doctors out there this is even more difficult to say when all their educational institutions, degrees, research funding etc lean towards supporting big agro and the pharmaceutical industries.

Can you imagine a panel of people admiting they're wrong? If one person starts to resist the ideas *BAM* they're no longer helping to shape the Dietary Guidelines.

[Katt]

Not to mention... admitting that they were wrong about the food guidelines means admitting that they are responsible for the deaths of millions of people who followed them through diabetes and heart disease, among others.

[MariaNYC]

I think I just realized this is precisely why they won't do it -- after admitting that they were wrong, they would be subject to a ridiculous amount of litigation. Yikes!

[Lightlystarched]

Seriously, we need a HUGE class action lawsuit to bring attention to this. Even if you lose (which is probable) it would force the federal government to stop making recommendation that are not based on good science.

[New Renaissance]

Are there any federal policy lawyers on this forum?