Sun, Dec-06-15, 07:47
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Senior Member
Posts: 15,075
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Plan: mostly milkfat
Stats: 190/152.4/154
BF:
Progress: 104%
Location: Ontario
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Dr. Eades;
Quote:
As the time draws near for the final version of the DGA to be released, a number of groups are going into overdrive to get Congress to either change them or leave them alone. I just got an email from none other than Michael Jacobsen, the head of the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), famous for having inflicted trans fats on America (which they seemed to forget as they mounted a campaign recently to remove trans fats from the food supply). Jacobsen, of course, does not want the DGA to reflect the research showing saturated fat is harmless. He’s worried that the food lobbyists will get to Congress “behind closed doors” and persuade them to change the DGA. Why?
"They don’t want consumers to have information how healthy diets – like eating more fruits and vegetables and less meat – can prevent illnesses such as obesity and type 2 diabetes."
Other advocates are desperately trying to force the DGA out early in an effort to keep them free from Congressional meddling, which, obviously, these advocates feel would not be in their best interest.
"In urging publication of the guidelines before the spending resolution expires, advocates say they hope to avoid a debate over controversial riders, including one in the House agriculture appropriations bill that would limit the evidence for the recommendations to only the strongest scientific proof."
Why on earth would we not want only the strongest scientific proof? Jesus wept.
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That got me curious about the appropriations bill. Here's the relevant part;
http://appropriations.house.gov/upl...mitteedraft.pdf
Quote:
SEC. 734. None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to release or implement the final version of the eighth edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, revised pursuant to section 301 of the National Nutrition Monitoring and Related Research Act of 1990, unless the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of Health and Human Services comply with each of the following requirements:
(1) Each revision to any nutritional or dietary information or guideline contained in the 2010 edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and any new nutritional or dietary information or guideline to be included in the eighth edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans—
(A) shall be based on scientific evidence
that has been rated ‘‘Grade I: Strong’’ by the
grading rubric developed by the Nutrition Evi-
dence Library of the Department of Agri-
culture; and
(B) shall be limited in scope to only matters of diet and nutrient intake.
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This isn't about things already in the dietary guidelines, it's about revision. So while this supposedly would protect from weak science being used to alter dietary recommendations, at the same time it helps to cement in the existing recommendations already based on weak science. Disregarding weaker science sounds good--but if you want to refute pre-existing claims, do you really need a level of evidence that's any stronger than the evidence used to support making those claims in the first place? How about disregarding all of the weaker science? So when Dr. Eades says,
Quote:
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Why on earth would we not want only the strongest scientific proof?
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I say yes, but I'm afraid that's not what's being offered. |
) that consideration of sustainability is out, but that: 
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