D.C. — A “Secret Panel” of food-industry insiders handpicked by the Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Agriculture illegally influenced the recommendations in the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, argues a lawsuit the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine filed with the United States District Court for the District of Columbia on Aug. 19, 2026
The Guidelines, released on Jan. 7, 2026, emphasize fats, meat, and dairy products, shocking many health experts. The “scientific foundation” for the Guidelines was hastily assembled by consultants with financial ties to the meat, dairy, and low-carb diet industries.
“The government allowed the meat and dairy industries to ghostwrite the Dietary Guidelines,” said Physicians Committee President Neal D. Barnard, MD. “They put money in industry’s pocket and cholesterol in Americans’ arteries.”
In advance of each edition of the Dietary Guidelines, which are issued every five years by HHS and USDA, the agencies follow the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) in establishing a Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) to write a scientific report that serves as the foundation for the Dietary Guidelines
In December 2024, after a transparent two-year public process, the DGAC’s 20 independent nutrition experts issued the Scientific Report of the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, recommending in part that the Dietary Guidelines should advise Americans to consume more plant-based meals, prioritize beans and other plant-based protein over animal protein, and make water, rather than milk, their beverage of choice
But instead of issuing Dietary Guidelines after reviewing the DGAC’s recommendations, HHS and USDA “disregarded federal law through a procedural bait and switch,” replacing the DGAC’s recommendations with “recommendations of a hastily assembled panel of industry insiders, without any oversight or input by the public,” according to the lawsuit
The FACA mandates that an advisory committee “will not be inappropriately influenced by the appointing authority or any special interest,” but eight of the nine members of the Secret Panel had conflicts of interest including ties to the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the National Dairy Council, the American Egg Board, the National Pork Board, and the low-carbohydrate diet industry
According to the lawsuit, the Secret Panel took “only three months to produce its 90 page report and 418 page appendix,” which was only made available, along with the names of the members of the Secret Panel, on Jan. 7, 2026, the day the Dietary Guidelines were released.
“The 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines pose dangers to children, whose school food programs must adhere to the Dietary Guidelines; to individuals with medical conditions who might follow the baseless medical advice incorporated into the Dietary Guidelines; and to Americans who are at risk for diet-related diseases, including obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease, and might follow the scientifically unfounded Dietary Guidelines, which are designed to promote fatty, high-cholesterol products of industries with which the Dietary Guidelines’ authors are affiliated,” argues the lawsuit.
The lawsuit asks the court to order HHS and USDA to withdraw the Dietary Guidelines and to forbid the agencies from using them in any future agency decisions while the agencies develop new Dietary Guidelines in compliance with the FACA
“Industry-influenced Dietary Guidelines destroy any semblance of healthfulness in federal food programs like the National School Lunch Program, WIC, and SNAP,” says Dr. Barnard
Prior to the issuance of the 2000 Dietary Guidelines, the Physicians Committee sued under the FACA and the Freedom of Information Act, arguing that six of the 11 DGAC members had financial ties to the meat, dairy, or egg industries and that these financial ties might increase the likelihood that unhealthy foods would remain in the Dietary Guidelines. A federal court agreed that the government had violated both laws. The Physicians Committee also challenged improprieties in the 2010, 2015, and 2020 Dietary Guidelines in federal court.
