The title might be overblown but I've come to fully expect every government agency is somehow influenced (to say the least) by some organization or another with an ulterior motive.<p>It appears this is just the way the system is set up. Everyone has something to gain from this influence (except the public of course). I've come to accept this as a fact of life and think for myself. Do my own research, consult professionals in matters that are important to me.
The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics is a lobbying group, why would this be surprising to anyone? They have no official government function.<p>Edit: It appears I am wrong, and it is not just a lobbying group. They also issue the licensing needed to sell diet advice in many states.<p><a href="https://www.cdrnet.org/#" rel="nofollow">https://www.cdrnet.org/#</a>
The Academy and nutrition and dietetics depend on dietitians renewing their Registered Dietitian credential. That's how they make money.<p>In order to force the issue, the AND's lobbyists have gone around the country and made it so that you are required to have a license in 14 states to talk with another individual about food and nutrition.<p>The AND made it so that in order to get that license you must be a registered dietitian, in other words, you must pay a private organization for the privilege to pay the government for a license to talk about food and nutrition.<p>It's a classic government back monopoly that has no positive impact on society, other than protectionism of an outdated business model.<p><a href="https://ij.org/client/heather-kokesch-del-castillo/" rel="nofollow">https://ij.org/client/heather-kokesch-del-castillo/</a>
If you lookup the histories of the people making the decisions you’ll see their connections to industry.<p>The chair of the committee who oversees dietary recommendations is listed as a professor. She got that for filling for retirement as a professor more than a decade ago. Has worked in industry lobbying and funding industry studies prior to gov work. Not an impartial person.<p>Edit: her LinkedIn is <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/barbara-schneeman-ph-d-a99b6829" rel="nofollow">https://www.linkedin.com/in/barbara-schneeman-ph-d-a99b6829</a>. The Damon institute funds stuff for the yogurt company
This is common complaint at science conferences. Research dollars often go towards shiny things instead of knowledge that will advance diagnostic theory and serve the highest good. Without accurate theory, we cannot advance. The Mediterranean diet is a classic example. Once the researchers were able to show it had some health benefits, it received huge amounts of funding for years. They were able to publish again and again, gaining publicity, gaining more funding and giving the illusion of superiority over other, less-researched, dietary and nutritional tools. Imagine if they had sought to understand how it actually works? We need to ensure that research dollars go towards meaningful projects that seek truth, maintain objectivity and advance knowledge, not agendas.
This has to have implications on why no two studies are ever quite the same, and rarely reproducible. Yet another "study": <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26980822/" rel="nofollow">https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26980822/</a>
This is entirely shocking to me and definitely doesn't just promote a sigh, an eyeroll, and a disturbingly-existential internal observation on the futility of getting anything non-money-related done in good faith when money is involved.