US dietary committee is plagued with “high risk conflicts of interest,” report finds

Nine out of 20 members of the US Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) have “high” or “medium risk” conflicts of interest with companies or industry groups that have a stake in the outcome of the guidelines, a report has claimed.1The group US Right to Know (USRTK), which campaigns for transparency in the food industry, looked at each committee member’s ties with food, pharmaceutical, or weight loss companies or industry groups over the past five years, using publicly available data.It found that an additional four members had possible conflicts of interest, ranging from large grants from a food company to a single speaking appearance at an industry funded conference, while only seven had no confirmed or possible conflicts in the past five years.“With high risk conflicts of interest still present on the committee, the public cannot have confidence that the official dietary advice of the US government is free from industry…
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