Trump administration officials encouraged Americans to “eat real food” when they rewrote dietary guidelines earlier this year—but federal agencies ignored real laws in updating policy recommendations, according to a lawsuit filed by a doctors group
The complaint, filed by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, accuses the Health and Human Services Department and the Agriculture Department of engaging in a “procedural bait and switch” that promoted the interests of the beef and dairy industries at the expense of Americans’ health. A “secret panel” of scientists with financial ties to the food industry steamrolled rules governing how federal advisory committees operate, per the lawsuit filed Wednesday in the US District Court for the District of Columbia.
“The government allowed the meat and dairy industries to ghostwrite the Dietary Guidelines,” Neal D. Barnard, the group’s president, said in a statement. “They put money in industry’s pocket and cholesterol in Americans’ arteries.”
The group, which promotes plant-based diets, in January filed a petition asking officials to withdraw the revamped guidelines, raising similar concerns that food industry interests had “manipulated federal diet guidelines.” The guidelines inform food procurement and policy across the federal government—the USDA, for example, is working to implement them in school meal programs that feed tens of millions of low-income children. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has also framed recommendations such as eating more protein and less added sugar as a key component in his policy agenda to fight chronic disease.
Plaintiffs alleged eight of the nine researchers the Trump administration selected to work on a scientific review undergirding the guidelines had financial ties to food sector groups including the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and the National Dairy Council, alongside companies including General Mills and Atkins Nutritionals
Despite those conflicts of interest, the researchers weren’t subject to a recusal analysis or ethics training as required under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, the complaint said
Plaintiffs also accuse the agencies of disregarding a scientific report developed during the Biden administration, in favor of arbitrary and capricious recommendations that violated the Administrative Procedure Act
The lawsuit seeks a court order that withdraws the guidelines and blocks HHS or USDA from using them in future policy decisions
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has repeatedly sued the government over previous iterations of the dietary guidelines, which are typically updated every five years according to the latest science
Its most recent lawsuit over the issue was dismissed in 2023, with a federal judge finding the group lacked standing to bring Administrative Procedure Act claims because the guidelines aren’t considered a final agency action
The case is Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine v. HHS, D.D.C., 1:26-cv-0291, Complaint filed 8/19/26
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