The British Medical Journal clarified two points in its critique of expert advice being used by the U.S. government in updating the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. In a “Response” on its website, BMJ says the article erred in saying the panel deleted meat from its recommendations for healthy diets and overstated the portion of topics not reviewed through the National Evidence Library, which was created by the USDA in 2010 to help conduct systematic reviews of academic studies on nutrition. The article questioned the scientific rigor of the report delivered by the expert panel.
The guidelines are revamped every five years. The new edition is due later this fall.
“The guidelines affect school lunches, food labelling, and scientific research – which is to say that their impact is very large,” writes Arielle Duhaime-Ross at The Verge. “But the BMJ published an investigation that reads like pro-fat propaganda last week – and that means it will probably be used by the meat lobby to discredit the committee’s advice on lowering the consumption of red and processed meats.” The author of the BMJ feature article, Nina Teicholz, wrote the 2014 book “The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet.”
Rebecca Coombes, BMJ head of investigations and features, told The Verge that the journal stands by the story and that Teicholz would write a statement for the BMJ site in response to critics. USDA’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, involved in producing the 2015 Dietary Guidelines, scored the article for “prevalence of errors.” The consumer group Center for Science in the Public Interest said there were “many glaring errors” in the BMJ article and that the advisory committee’s recommendations jibe with “virtually every major health authority.”