Guidelines process change a "retreat from public engagement and transparency"
Mort Satin and I today filed a letter (pdf 103.06 kB) with the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee lamenting their decision to convert a public meeting next week into a webinar with no face-to-face interaction. We told the DGAC:
This runs directly counter to the Administration’s encouragement of greater transparency. We earlier registered our continued disappointment that the Committee has turned its back on another Administration commitment – to improve the process in considering science. By not pre-defining quality standards for inclusion in the evidence-based review process being utilized, the Committee invites the same kind of selective, expert opinion criticisms leveled at earlier panels.
Our letter registered process concerns on several issues:
- Failure to upgrade to a true evidence-based process as recommended by the Institute of Medicine, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force and the Cochrane Collaboration.
- Failure to insulate against the prejudicial policy bias of DGAC leaders. We pointed out how the 2000 Guidelines had reversed course on its recommendations for fat when they determined "the recommendation to lower fat intake had been ill-advised and might actually create harm." With leaders pre-judging the issue, the DGAC will find it difficult to ease the salt guideline to reflect the failure of scientific studies to identify a health benefit.
- Some DGAC members seem to equate salt "disappearance" data with human consumption, but government and university research shows that between 27% and 50% of foods are wasted and many food technologies using salt do not result in that salt ending up in the final product. We offered as examples of "wastage" that 80-90% of salt in koshering meats, 60-80% used in cheese curing, 80-95% used in processing frozen vegetables, 75-80% used in canning, 75-80% used in preparing pickles, sauerkraut and olives, 60-75% used in salting fish and 85-90% used in home cooking water for pasta, vegetables, etc. is discarded after the food is prepared and not ultimately ingested. Overall, we estimated 30-50% shrinkage.
- We reminded Committee members that any successful replacement of salt in food products would require massive use of salt substitute chemicals with long chemical names that consumers might find problematic since none have been tested in the huge amounts that would be ingested if large-scale salt replacement was achieved.
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