Book
Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health (revised and expanded tenth anniversary edition; first edition 2002)
Nestle, a professor of nutrition at New York University, argues that food companies shape federal dietary advice, nutrition societies, research, children's marketing, school food and supplement law, because an oversupply of food obliges them to promote eating more. The book has five parts: dietary guidelines and the 1991-92 Food Guide Pyramid; lobbying, sponsorship of nutritionists, public relations and lawsuits; marketing to children and soft-drink contracts in schools; the 1994 deregulation of dietary supplements; and fortified foods, functional foods and olestra. It rests on government documents, press reports and anonymous sources. The 2013 edition keeps the 2007 text and adds a foreword by Michael Pollan, a preface and an afterword on the 2005 and 2010 guidelines.
Who made it
- Author is a professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies at New York University: 'I hold a tenured, "hard-money" full professorship, and New York University pays my entire salary' (Preface to the First Edition,). Per the publisher she edited the 1988 Surgeon General's Report on Nutrition and Health; the book says she moved to Washington in 1986 to manage its editorial production (Introduction).
- Author's own disclosures : she has 'held grants from food companies', 'occasionally' consults for food companies, speaks at industry-sponsored meetings, accepts travel funds and public relations materials but no honoraria (companies are asked to donate to her department's scholarship fund), and the book was supported in part by research development grants from New York University and its Steinhardt School of Education.
- She served on the 1995 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee and on the three-person subcommittee that drafted its alcohol guideline (Ch. 3). She received anonymous USDA documents on the Pyramid episode and passed them to reporters (Ch. 2).
- She thanks Center for Science in the Public Interest staff, who 'opened their files and let me use what I wanted' (Acknowledgments); no organizational tie to CSPI beyond that is stated in the text read.
- Publisher is University of California Press, a university press, in its California Studies in Food and Culture series (Darra Goldstein, editor); copyright 2002, 2007, 2013 Regents of the University of California; foreword by Michael Pollan; ISBN 978-0-520-27596-6. The preface says the 2007 text was left intact and only the preface and afterword are new.
- Nestle is also the author of the 1993 International Journal of Health Services article on the Food Guide Pyramid held as exhibit Exhibit 537 (No. 537) and of the invited commentary that accompanied Kearns et al. (JAMA Internal Medicine 176(11):1685-1686, 2016).
- No industry or government funding of the 2013 edition is stated beyond the New York University grants above.
Its claims checked against the record
22 claims checked:4 supported · 15 partly supported · 3 contradicted · 0 not in the record
A verdict rests on the documents named in its row.
| The work says | Verdict | What the record shows |
|---|---|---|
| “Meat and egg producers called for—and got—additional hearings to express their views.” The committee then “issued a revised edition of the Dietary Goals late in 1977” that “Increased the salt allowance from 3 to 5 grams per day,” added that “some consideration should be given to easing the cholesterol goal for pre-menopausal women, young children and the elderly in order to obtain the nutritional benefits of eggs in the diet,” and replaced the first edition's meat wording. | Supported by the record | The second-edition print says that 'Two industries — meat and egg producers — requested additional hearings', held 24 March and 26 July 1977, and that the National Live Stock and Meat Board sent 24 names of experts (p. xxx). Goal No. 7 changes 'approximately 3 gms a day' to 'about 5 grams a day' (p. xl), Suggestion 6 carries the egg sentence in the book's words, and Suggestion No. 3 replaces 'decrease consumption of meat and increase consumption of poultry and fish' with the animal-fat wording (p. xl). The book's note 23 gives the meat change as the replacement of 'reduce consumption of meat'; the first-edition print reads 'Decrease consumption of meat and increase consumption of poultry and fish', so the book's quoted first-edition words do not match the print. |
| The three changes in the second edition were “designed expressly to placate food producers.” | Partly supported | The changes and the hearings are in the print. The print gives other stated reasons: the salt change follows 'further review of the evidence concerning sodium intake' (p. xl); the meat change implements the fat goals (p. xl); the egg sentence cites the nutritional benefits of eggs for young children, pre-menopausal women and the elderly (p. xxxix). Senator Dole's supplemental foreword says 'I am pleased that the second edition deletes language from the first edition recommending "eat less meat"' (p. xi). The print nowhere says a producer asked for the wording change, and the book's list of three omits a fourth change in the print, the restatement of the sugar goal (see leftOut). |
| USDA's Secretary Edward Madigan blocked the printing of the Department's Eating Right Pyramid because, he said, it was “confusing to children,” but “the USDA was responding to meat and dairy producers complaining that the placement of their food groups in the narrower, ‘eat less’ sectors of the Pyramid caused their products to be ‘stigmatized.’” | Partly supported | Exhibit 537 gives the same sequence in the author's words: pages to the printer in February 1991, protests from the Cattlemen's Association and other producer groups in April, Madigan's postponement for testing on children and poorly educated adults. USDA's 2011 history is silent on the episode. The book states its sources at: documents that arrived anonymously, 'press accounts, unofficial USDA memoranda, and telephone conversations with people who insisted on anonymity'. At it reports that a USDA spokeswoman 'denied that industry complaints were the reason' and that a National Milk Producers Federation lobbyist said her group's concerns were one of the reasons. No USDA document, memorandum or Madigan letter was read, so the causal claim rests on the author, anonymous staff and press reports. |
| “On April 28, 1992—a year and a day and $855,000 after the announcement of its withdrawal—Secretary Madigan proclaimed the release of the USDA’s Food Guide Pyramid.” It “differed from the one shown in Figure 8 in at least 33 ways, most of them utterly trivial,” moved the serving numbers outside the design so as to suggest “2–3 servings of meat and dairy foods each day,” and “specified that the two servings should be ‘the equivalent of 5 to 7 ounces of cooked lean meat’ rather than the 4–6 ounces suggested in the Basic Four guide.” | Partly supported | Exhibit 537 gives the release a year and a day after the postponement, the $855,000 testing cost (reported) and the emphasis on 2-3 daily servings of meat and dairy. The 1996 USDA booklet reads 'The Food Guide Pyramid suggests 2 to 3 servings each day' from the meat group, 'the equivalent of 5 to 7 ounces', and 2-3 servings from the milk group. The count of 33 differences, the 4-6 ounce Basic Four figure and the title change after complaints from Kraft and ConAgra are not in any document read. The book also reports at that Bell Associates' 1992 research found the Pyramid and bowl designs 'virtually indistinguishable' and that a reweighted analysis gave scores of 43 against 37 for proportionality. |
| The 2000 guideline on sugars was softened step by step under industry pressure: “Committee report, September 1999: go easy on beverages and foods high in added sugars. Committee report, February 2000: choose beverages and foods that limit your intake of sugars. Agency override, May 2000: choose beverages and foods to moderate your intake of sugars.” Sugar trade associations “induced 30 senators, half from sugar-growing states, to question whether the USDA had the right to ‘change the sugar guidelines based on existing science.’” | Partly supported | The final text reads 'Choose beverages and foods to moderate your intake of sugars' (contents page and p. 32) and names nondiet soft drinks as 'the number one source of added sugars' (p. 32). The two earlier wordings, the description of the change as an agency override, and the 30-senator letter are not in any document read. |
| “Late in 1998, PCRM filed a federal lawsuit” charging that “6 of the 11 members of the Guidelines committee had significant ties to the meat, dairy, or egg industries,” and “the court denied PCRM’s request for a preliminary injunction but agreed that the methods for appointing committee members deserved further scrutiny.” | Contradicted by the record | The opinion's first paragraph says the plaintiffs filed a three-count complaint in December 1999 under the Federal Advisory Committee Act and the Freedom of Information Act about the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee for Year 2000, not in late 1998. The book's own Table 9 cites a PCRM document of 13 December 1999. The member count of 6 of 11, the denial of a preliminary injunction and the court's statement on appointment methods are in the opinion's body, which is behind a paywall, so those parts could not be checked. |
| Dietary Guidelines advisory committees have included members with ties to the industries affected, as in Table 9, which lists the industry affiliations of members of the Dietary Guidelines 2000 Advisory Committee, and “In 2003, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) charged that seven of the 13 scientists nominated to the advisory committee had consulted for companies with vested interests in the recommendations.” A Wall Street Journal investigation tied the 2005 increase in dairy servings to “the financial ties of several members of the advisory committee to dairy trade groups.” | Partly supported | For a later committee, Mialon et al. (2022, Discussion) found 'nineteen of the twenty DGAC members (95 %) had at least one tie to an industry actor' (720 relationship-year instances); the authors state the count can over- or under-count, that mapping ties to recommendations was out of scope, and that the study was funded by The Nutrition Coalition, with which co-author Nina Teicholz is affiliated. NASEM (2017) concludes that conflicts 'cannot always be able to be eliminated entirely on a balanced panel of experts'. The book's own counts for the 2000 and 2005 committees were not checked against the committee records. Record partly withheld. For the 2020 and 2025 committees the individual conflict-of-interest records are not public: the CSPI-led coalition letter of 27 January 2023 (exhibit 553) says the nominee information on funding sources and affiliations 'has not been released to the public' and that OGE Form 450 'is exempt from public disclosure', and Senator Grassley's release of 25 May 2023 says the individual OGE 450 reports remain non-public and that HHS and USDA had not answered his March 2023 request for special-government-employee ethics waivers. |
| The USDA's “dual mandates to protect agriculture and to advise the public about diet and health” create a “conflict of interest,” and Congress, by reaffirming USDA's “lead-agency” role in 1988, intended “to prevent the successor agency to DHEW, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), from issuing independent dietary advice that might adversely affect agricultural interests.” | Partly supported | NASEM (2017) records that presenters raised 'the potential conflict of interest USDA might have in managing and supporting the DGA given its role in supporting U.S. agriculture', which is testimony, not a NASEM finding. NASEM found the selection process lawful and 'thoughtful' but not transparent. The 1990 statute (7 U.S.C. 5341) requires HHS and USDA to publish the guidelines every five years and sets no rules on committee conflicts. |
| “Do campaign contributions, trips, and presents buy corporate influence over government decisions? Much evidence suggests that they do, and in proportion to the amounts spent.” In the Chiquita and sugar cases “financial contributions bought access to government officials and resulted in policies favorable to donors.” In the sugar case, Alfonso Fanjul reached the President by telephone on a federal holiday, and “the tax was never passed.” | Partly supported | The Starr Report prints the book's quoted passage: the President 'talked with Alfonso Fanjul of Palm Beach, Florida, from 12:42 to 1:04 p.m.', after a call from Fanjul at 12:24 p.m. That establishes access on that date. The causal sentences are the author's inference: at the book itself says 'research on the effects of PACs does not prove that they buy influence, it certainly suggests a strong correlation between contributions and desired outcomes'. No contribution record was read, so the record read does not show a contribution producing an action. |
| The Supreme Court “ruled that the gifts to Mr. Espy were acceptable because they were not directly linked to regulatory matters,” and “The favorable Supreme Court decision that exonerated Mr. Espy meant that the net result of the entire tawdry affair was to make it legal for food companies to give presents to agency officials as long as the gifts were not used explicitly as bribes.” | Contradicted by the record | Sun-Diamond was the prosecution of the cooperative for gratuities to Espy under 18 U.S.C. 201(c)(1)(A). The Court held that 'the Government must prove a link between a thing of value conferred upon a federal official and a specific "official act"' and affirmed the court of appeals' reversal of the conviction and remand for a new trial. It did not decide that the gifts to Espy were acceptable or exonerate him, and the opinion does not mention an acquittal; the book separately says a jury acquitted Espy, a verdict that was not checked here. The book's gift values and the number of convictions were not checked. |
| “Researchers on such relationships do not suggest that industry-sponsored research is always biased, just that there is a higher probability that it will draw favorable conclusions,” and “No matter how carefully the research is conducted, its partisan sponsorship conveys the impression that the results were purchased.” Table 14 lists eleven studies, reviews or editorials supported in part by food, beverage or supplement companies with favorable conclusions. | Supported by the record | Lesser et al. (PLoS Medicine 2007) reviewed 206 articles on soft drinks, juice and milk: among interventional studies, 0 percent of all-industry-funded studies had unfavorable conclusions against 37 percent of studies with no industry funding. Bes-Rastrollo et al. (PLoS Medicine, 31 Dec 2013, after the book) found reviews with disclosed conflicts 'five times more likely to present a conclusion of no positive association' (RR 5.0, 95% CI 1.3-19.3) and state they cannot rule out publication bias among reviews with no conflict. Both papers show an association, which is the strength of the book's own sentence; neither shows that a sponsor changed a result. |
| “The amount of money spent on marketing directed to children and their parents rose from $6.9 billion in 1992 to $12.7 billion in 1997,” and the FTC's 2008 analysis of food industry expenditures on marketing to children was “estimated at $1.6 billion.” | Partly supported | The FTC found 44 companies spent about $1.6 billion on food marketing to children and adolescents in 2006, $870 million of it directed to children under 12, and that carbonated beverages, quick-service restaurants and cereals made up 63 percent. The 2012 report found 48 companies spent $1.79 billion in 2009, a 19.5 percent drop in inflation-adjusted spending from 2006, with television spending down and new-media spending up 50 percent. The $6.9 billion and $12.7 billion figures cover marketing to children and parents (the book's note 10) and were not checked. |
| “That televised commercials influence the food choices, preferences, and demands of children—particularly younger children—has been well understood since the early 1970s.” The Institute of Medicine's research review “established unambiguous links between food marketing and children’s food preferences and requests, eating habits, and body weight.” | Partly supported | The committee concluded that 'television advertising influences the food preferences, purchase requests, and diets, at least of children under the age of 12 years, and is associated with the increased rates of obesity among children and youth'. It states it 'could not state the relationship in quantitative terms' and that much marketing research was unavailable to it. Preferences and requests are supported; for body weight the IOM wrote 'associated with', which is weaker than the book's 'unambiguous links'. |
| “The extra calories from soft drinks replace calories from more nutritious foods and are more than sufficient to account for rising rates of obesity and related risk factors among American schoolchildren,” and “researchers calculate that for each additional soda consumed, the risk of obesity increases 1.6 times.” Soft-drink consumers also “display a risk of bone fractures three- to four-fold higher than those who do not.” | Partly supported | Ludwig et al. followed 548 schoolchildren (mean age 11.7) in four Massachusetts communities for 19 months and report that for each additional daily serving of sugar-sweetened drink, frequency of obesity rose with an odds ratio of 1.60 (95% CI 1.14-2.24), and BMI by 0.24 kg/m2. The study is observational. The book converts an odds ratio for sugar-sweetened drinks among children into a risk ratio for 'soda', and the sentence that soft-drink calories are 'more than sufficient to account for' the rise in obesity is not a finding of that paper. The fracture figure was not checked. |
| “According to the General Accounting Office, about 200 school districts in the United States were participating in such agreements by 2000,” under which soft-drink companies make lump-sum and multi-year payments “for exclusive sales of one company’s products in vending machines and at all school events,” with additional benefits for “consumption levels that surpass quotas.” | Partly supported | GAO-00-156 says 'exclusive soft drink contracts were the fastest growing activity of all product sales', that contracts covered a school, a district or a consortium, 'generated both monetary and in-kind donations', and ran 'up to 10 years'; it also says 'national data are limited'. The text read has no count of 200 districts, so the number is not in the cited report. GAO-05-563 found 'nearly half of all schools in 2003-2004 had an exclusive beverage contract', about 75 percent of high schools, 65 percent of middle schools and 30 percent of elementary schools. |
Show the other 7 claims checked
| The work says | Verdict | What the record shows |
|---|---|---|
| When the USDA restricted sales of competitive foods, soft drink producers “took the USDA to court,” the District Court said “it is an obvious fact of life that a... vending machine, no matter where located, can act as a magnet for any child who inclines to the non-nutritious,” and “Soft drink producers appealed the decision and won. The Appeals Court ruled that the intent of Congress was simply to control sales of ‘junk foods’ during meal service.” USDA's proposed rule drew “Some 4,200 comments... filling a 15,000-page record.” | Supported by the record | The court of appeals held that 'the Secretary exceeded his rule making authority when he promulgated the time and place regulations barring the sale of competitive foods throughout the school and until after the end of the last service of the day', and 'Reversed in part, affirmed in part and remanded.' The opinion recounts 'a 15,000 page record'. The district court sentence, quoted in the opinion, reads 'can operate as a magnet for any child who inclines toward the non-nutritious', so the book's quotation changes two words. The 4,200 and 3,000 comment counts and the PepsiCo letter campaign were not checked. |
| “In 1978, the FTC proposed banning television advertising to children under age eight and restricting advertising of sugary foods to children of any age. This proposal elicited so much protest that the FTC chairman was forced to resign and Congress passed the FTC Improvement Act of 1980 to permanently block the agency’s authority to regulate advertising to children.” | Partly supported | Section 11(a) adds a new subsection to the FTC Act: 'The Commission shall not have any authority to promulgate any rule in the children's advertising proceeding pending on the date of the enactment of the Federal Trade Commission Improvements Act of 1980 or in any substantially similar proceeding on the basis of a determination by the Commission that such advertising constitutes an unfair act or practice in or affecting commerce.' The bar covers rulemaking on unfairness grounds in that proceeding and substantially similar ones, which is narrower than the book's 'authority to regulate advertising to children'. The 1978 proposal and the chairman's resignation were not checked. |
| Congress ordered the FTC to set up the Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children; the industries “immediately began lobbying” and food companies “were reported to have spent $37 million on such efforts”; and “In December, the House inserted language in the Appropriations Act requiring the IWG to conduct an analysis of relative costs and benefits before issuing standards.” | Partly supported | Section 626 reads: 'None of the funds made available in this Act may be used by the Federal Trade Commission to complete the draft report entitled "Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children: Preliminary Proposed Nutrition Principles to Guide Industry Self-Regulatory Efforts" unless the Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children complies with Executive Order No. 13563.' The text sets a funding condition tied to an executive order. It does not use the words 'analysis of relative costs and benefits', and it was enacted law. The $37 million figure and the Waxman remark were not checked. |
| DSHEA “specified that manufacturers did not need to demonstrate that their products were safe before selling them. Instead, Congress required the FDA to prove that products were unsafe,” and for statements of nutritional support “a supplement maker need only notify the FDA 30 days after marketing the product, have on hand some substantiation (also unspecified) for the statement, and include on the label the DSHEA disclaimer.” In the five years after enactment “supplement sales in the United States grew from $4 billion to nearly $15 billion.” | Supported by the record | Section 4 provides that in a proceeding to show a supplement adulterated 'the United States shall bear the burden of proof on each element'. Section 6 requires the manufacturer to have 'substantiation that such statement is truthful and not misleading', the boldface disclaimer 'This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease', and notice to the Secretary 'no later than 30 days after the first marketing'. Section 8 requires a history-of-use submission 'at least 75 days before' a new dietary ingredient is marketed and exempts ingredients marketed before 15 October 1994. Section 2(12)(C) finds supplement sales of 'at least $4,000,000,000' in 1994. The statute does not describe the four-level FDA and HHS approval chain the book gives, the 75-day court showing or the $15 billion figure, which were not checked. |
| In Pearson v. Shalala “the court ruled that lack of support for ‘significant scientific agreement’ was no reason to deny a health claim,” “called the FDA’s requirements for scientific substantiation” “almost frivolous,” and found a denial “unconstitutional on First Amendment (freedom-of-speech) grounds” because the phrase “lacked ‘definitional content.’” | Contradicted by the record | The court wrote that the government's argument that claims lacking significant scientific agreement are inherently misleading because consumers are in effect hypnotized is 'almost frivolous'; it did not apply that phrase to the FDA's substantiation requirements. It held that the First Amendment required the FDA to consider disclaimers before banning the four claims, and it did 'not rule out the possibility that where evidence in support of a claim is outweighed by evidence against the claim, the FDA could deem it incurable by a disclaimer and ban it outright.' On the standard it held that the APA required the FDA to give 'some definitional content to the phrase "significant scientific agreement"' and found it 'unnecessary' to decide the constitutional vagueness claim. The disposition: the four sub-regulations and the FDA's interpretation of its general regulation were held invalid and the case was remanded to the FDA for reconsideration. |
| “Since DSHEA, however, the FDA has been able to ban only one supplement—ephedra—and only after multiple court challenges”; after the 2003 death of a baseball player, the death “encouraged the FDA to try again to ban ephedra. After three years of court challenges, it finally succeeded.” | Partly supported | The Tenth Circuit opinion recites that 'the FDA adopted a regulation which banned EDS at all dosage levels from the national market', cites 69 Fed. Reg. 6788 (Feb. 11, 2004), reverses the district court, and holds that the FDA 'correctly followed the congressional directive to analyze the risks and benefits'. That supports the ephedra ban and the court challenges. The universal statement that ephedra is the only supplement the FDA has banned was not tested against FDA actions through 2013. At the book says the Utah court in Pharmanex v. Shalala allowed Cholestin to be sold as a supplement; at it adds that the decision was later overturned, which the Tenth Circuit did on 21 July 2000 (221 F.3d 1151). |
| Sugar industry groups “enlisted senators from sugar-growing states to pressure the HHS secretary to withdraw WHO funding, and they induced the HHS chief counsel to send a critique of the report, essentially written by industry lobbyists, to WHO headquarters in Geneva,” and WHO's 2004 Global Strategy “omitted any mention of the background report or the 10% sugar recommendation.” | Partly supported | WHO/FAO TRS 916 sets a population goal for free sugars of 'less than 10% of total energy' and calls it 'controversial' (Ch. 5, p. 56). AP reports requests to HHS Secretary Thompson on 20 March 2003 from a coalition of food industry groups and on 28 March from Senators Breaux (D-LA) and Craig (R-ID), and that the senators also wrote Agriculture Secretary Veneman; CSPI quotes the Sugar Association's letter saying it would ask Congress 'to challenge future funding' of the U.S. contribution of $406 million. The counsel's critique, its authorship by lobbyists and the contents of the 2004 Global Strategy are not in any document read. |
What the record shows that it leaves out
- The book lists three changes between the two editions of the 1977 Dietary Goals. The second-edition print also restates the sugar goal, from 'Reduce sugar consumption by about 40 percent to account for about 15 percent of total energy intake' to 'Reduce the consumption of refined and processed sugars by about 45 percent to account for about 10 percent of total energy intake', 'to be more preciseness provided to the consumer' (Preface, change to Goal No. 5; first edition p. 12). It prints reasons for each change, among them 'further review of the evidence concerning sodium intake'. Sources: exhibits 534 and 589.
- The second-edition print states that the first edition's recommendation 'was intended to help implement the goals of reducing overall fat consumption from approximately 40 percent to 30 percent of our energy intake' and that 'the Select Committee does not believe that there is sufficient scientific evidence to recommend a reduction in overall protein intake' (p. xl). The book gives only the producer-pressure account. Source: exhibit 534.
- The International Sugar Research Foundation, not the Sugar Association, filed the 1977 sugar brief, which called the report 'misleading' (Supplemental Views, pp. 685-696). The book says only that 'sugar producers registered strong protest'. Source: Exhibit 591 (exhibit 591).
- The 2013 edition does not mention the Sugar Research Foundation's 1965-67 payments for the New England Journal of Medicine review by Hegsted and McGandy, the sugar industry's input to the National Institute of Dental Research's 1971 caries program, or Coca-Cola's funding of the Global Energy Balance Network (a text search of the shelf copy for McGandy, Hegsted, Sugar Research Foundation, Kearns and Global Energy Balance found none). These documents surfaced in 2015-2016: Exhibit 584, Exhibit 585 and part2, Exhibit 596, Exhibit 597, Exhibit 600 (exhibits 584-586, 596, 597, 600).
- Records that postdate the book's text and bear on its subjects: the 2015 House letter and P.L. 114-113 sec. 734 limiting the dietary committee's scope (exhibits 541, 540); NASEM's 2017 reports (exhibits 551-552); Mialon et al. 2022 (exhibit 548); the January 2026 HHS and USDA guidelines issued on a contracted nine-author review (exhibit 556).
- In P.L. 112-74 sec. 626 the funding condition refers to Executive Order 13563; the book describes it as a cost-benefit analysis requirement and does not name the order.
Documented efforts and withheld records
Each item is a documented act, with its source: an act against the work, its author or its sources, or the withholding of records on its subject. The list states what was done and does not state why.
- 22 February 2002 (updated 20 May 2015). Steven Milloy (JunkScience.com) published a Fox News opinion column on the first edition the day of publication, disputing three figures in the book and stating that Nestle omitted 'her five-year stint as a CSPI board member'. The column cites no board record, and no board record was found. Fox News, Steven Milloy, 'New Nutrition Book Choking on Bad Science'
- 22 February 2002. Three anonymous Amazon.com reader reviews of the first edition were posted two weeks before publication, attacking the author for ignoring 'will power' and 'personal responsibility'. The author's 2013 preface reproduces a statement by Sheldon Rampton that these reviews and Milloy's were posted on 22 February 2002. The posting dates and authorship are the author's and Rampton's account; no platform record was read. Food Politics (2013 ed.), Preface to the Tenth Anniversary Edition,
- April 2003. The Sugar Association wrote to WHO Director-General Brundtland that it would ask Congress to 'challenge future funding' of the U.S. contribution of $406 million, over the WHO/FAO report TRS 916 that the book cites (afterword, para 1677). Senators Craig (R-ID) and Breaux (D-LA) wrote to two cabinet secretaries, as quoted by CSPI. CSPI release, 'Big sugar's thuggish tactics come under fire' (exhibit 594)
- 20 and 28 March 2003. A coalition of food industry groups asked HHS Secretary Thompson on 20 March 2003 to intervene against the WHO/FAO report, Senators Breaux and Craig asked him on 28 March, and the senators also wrote Agriculture Secretary Veneman. AP reports Thompson had not responded before the report's 23 April release; Sugar Association president Andrew Briscoe wrote to the WHO director-general attacking the report. AP via CBS News, 'Sugar Lobbyists Sour On Study' (exhibit 593)
- May 2019 (response); 27 January 2023 (letter). USDA (Stoody, for the departments) told a 2019 meeting that it would not adopt NASEM's recommendation to publish a list of provisional Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee appointees for public comment, citing privacy of provisional appointees; the coalition letter says the departments named no alternative method of disclosing members' conflicts after appointment. USDA slides, 'Responding to the NASEM Study' (exhibit 550); CSPI-led coalition letter (exhibit 553)
- 25 May 2023. HHS and USDA released a four-page aggregate report of conflicts on the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee that does not attribute them to individual members. Senator Grassley stated the individual OGE 450 reports were not released and that the departments had not answered his March 2023 request for ethics-waiver information, and asked that DGAC suspend its writing until conflicts were resolved. Senator Chuck Grassley, press release
- Filed December 1999; decided 30 September 2000. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and others sued the Secretary of Agriculture under the Federal Advisory Committee Act and the Freedom of Information Act over the appointment and operation of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee for Year 2000 (No. 99-3107, D.D.C.); Judge Robertson decided the case on 30 September 2000. Only the opinion's first paragraph was read, so the records sought and the holdings are not stated here. Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine v. Glickman, 117 F. Supp. 2d 1 (D.D.C. 2000)
Published responses
- Steven Milloy (JunkScience.com, Cato Institute adjunct scholar), Fox News, 22 Feb 2002, updated 20 May 2015: Opinion piece on the first edition disputing three figures or claims: that poor diet, inactivity and alcohol contribute to about 400,000 US deaths a year, the rise in obesity as measured by telephone surveys and body mass index, and an estimate that a 1 percent cut in saturated fat would prevent over 30,000 heart disease cases a year. It also says Nestle did not disclose a five-year stint on the board of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. It cites no primary data for its rebuttals. The 2013 preface reproduces a statement by Sheldon Rampton that the first three Amazon reader reviews and Milloy's review were posted on 22 February 2002.
- Ian Williams, The Nation, 18 Apr 2002 (print 6 May 2002): Review of the first edition. Summarizes its account of the cattlemen and Senator Dole in 1977, Nestle's treatment of the Pyramid, food-company funding of nutrition research, and marketing and soft-drink deals in schools, and endorses a ban on junk-food advertising in schools.
- Anonymous Amazon.com reviewers, 22 Feb 2002, as reproduced by the author (Preface to the Tenth Anniversary Edition): Three reviews posted two weeks before publication, one saying 'Nestle forgot a not-so-little thing called WILL POWER!', one asking whether the author had 'ever heard of personal responsibility', one saying her political system is 'dictatorship'. The author treats personal choice as the principal objection to the book.
Where it connects
- The Guidelines: The 1977 Dietary Goals revision after meat and egg hearings, the 1991 Pyramid postponement, the sugar wording of the 2000 guidelines and the committee-conflict tables (Ch. 1-3, Afterword) are the book's case histories of how guidelines are written.
- The Sugar Papers: The afterword's account of the Sugar Association and senators acting against the 2003 WHO/FAO sugar goal (exhibits 593-595); the 1965-67 Sugar Research Foundation payments that surfaced from archives in 2016 are not in the book.
- The Return on Lobbying: Ch. 4-6 on contributions, access and lobbying by food trade groups (the Fanjul call of 19 February 1996 in the Starr Report, the Sun-Diamond gratuities case) bear on what lobbying is documented to buy.