Trump administration restricts dietary science in new food guidelines

The US Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Agriculture are limiting the science that can be considered in framing the upcoming 2020 US dietary guidelines, restricting for the first time the topics that can be considered by the guidelines committee.

Updated every five years, the guidelines set the terms for school meals and government assisted food programmes. Many producers follow them, in part so that they can participate in this roughly $100bn market.

The guidelines have been shrouded in controversy for some time. In 2015 a BMJ investigation found that the guideline advisory committee’s processes to protect against bias were inadequate.1 …