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PORTSIDE CULTURE

THE MAHA DIETARY GUIDELINES III: CONFLICTS OF INTEREST  
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Marion Nestle
January 12, 2026
Food Politics

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_ The new dietary guidelines, which were released Wednesday and
emphasize protein, meat, cheese and milk, were informed by a panel of
experts with several ties to the meat and dairy industries. _

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On Mondays, I typically post something about industry-funded research
or investigator conflicts of interest.

In the light of Robert F. Kennedy’s complaints about conflicts of
interest in previous dietary guidelines advisory committees, it is
startling to observe the industry ties reported by members of this
administration’s committee.

These conflicted interests are also surprising in light of the high
prioritization of meat in these guidelines, which advise eating
protein (a commonly understood euphemism for meat) in every meal, and
high-fat dairy.

The committee’s membership and disclosures are given on pages
ix-xviii of the Scientific Foundation report.
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To focus just on ties to meat and dairy groups, members report
financial ties to

* Global Dairy Platform
* Nutricia/Danone
* National Cattlemen’s Beef Association
* Texas Beef Council
* American Dairy Science Association
* National Dairy Council
* National Pork Board
* California Dairy Innovation Center
* Fonterra Limited
* California Dairy Research Foundation
* Dairy Management Inc

This was reported originally in Stat News 
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quotes me elsewhere in the story).

It’s unclear how the Trump administration appointed its group of
nutrition scientists and other researchers. A scientific report linked
at the bottom of a new federal website, RealFood.gov, says only they
were chosen through “a federal contracting process based on
demonstrated expertise.”

Merrill Goozner quickly picked up the story on his GoozNews substack (
<[email protected]>): “Advisors to new nutrition guidelines rife
with conflicts of interest”

So a tip of the hat to RFK, Jr. for fully disclosing that information.
But put a dunce cap on his hypocritical head for allowing onto the
review panel six reviewers with financial ties to corporate interests
with a direct stake in the outcome of the guidelines. There is no
evidence that this committee, two-thirds of whom have ties to
industry, received vetting under the Federal Advisory Committee Act of
1948.

The New York Times story 
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out the hypocrisy (I’m also quoted later in this one):

Soon after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was sworn in as the nation’s health
secretary, he promised to overhaul the federal nutrition guidelines. A
key step, he said [[link removed]],
would be to “toss out the people who were writing the guidelines
with conflicts of interest.”

His own panel, he said, would “have no conflicts of interest.” But
the new guidelines, which were released Wednesday
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emphasize protein, meat, cheese and milk, were informed by a panel of
experts with several ties to the meat and dairy industries.

The Times quotes Mark Kennedy, the senior vice president of legal
affairs for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine,
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supports plant-based diets and has filed a complaint
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the government saying it should withdraw the guidelines.

Disclosing conflicts of interest at the end of the process “isn’t
really going to cut it..Because if nobody ever had a chance to weigh
in, and nobody other than the government behind closed doors had a way
to assess it, there’s no way to ensure there’s fair balance.”
(Mr. Kennedy is not related to the health secretary.)

COMMENT

In reading through press accounts, I’m pretty sure I saw one where
one of the committee members reporting financial ties tossed it off
with some comment about how he was sticking to the science and
that’s all that mattered (I’ve searched but can’t find it now).

I heard that a lot after publication of my book, _Unsavory Truth: How
Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat._
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_In that book, I review research on the “funding effect,” the
strong correlations between who pays for food and nutrition research
and its outcome.  Industry-funded research tends to produce results
favorable to the funder’s interests (otherwise it wouldn’t be
funded).  But recipients of funding typically did not intend to be
influenced and do not recognize the influence.  It is not surprising
that this committee—unlike many other scientific committees over the
past decades—came to precisely the conclusions decided in advance by
Secretaries Kennedy and Rollins.

 

* dietary guidelines
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