Food fight: controversy over red meat guidelines rumbles on

Few studies have landed with quite such a bang as the dietary guideline recommendations published last October in the Annals of Internal Medicine.1 After a thorough meta-analysis that largely discounted all but the highest quality randomised studies, an international review panel reached a conclusion directly contrary to the public health advice we’ve heard for years. They suggested that adults should continue their current consumption of both red and processed meat.

To call the reaction sharp would be an understatement. One critic branded the study “information terrorism.” Another reported it to authorities, demanding that they press charges of reckless endangerment.

Battle has raged in the media ever since. Accusations have flown of conflicts of interest and of bad faith; and Texas A&M University, which employs key study authors, is now demanding that Harvard University investigate two leading nutrition experts who are among the guidelines’ critics.