USDA sets dietary guidelines meeting
The Agriculture Department and the Health and Human Services Department announced Tuesday that the first meeting of the 2020 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee will be held in the USDA Jefferson Auditorium on March 28 from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and March 29 from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.
This is the first of five meetings to be scheduled for the committee — the dates of the subsequent meetings will be announced.
Registration for in-person attendance is open and closes March 26 at 5 p.m., and the public may also submit comments throughout the deliberations. (See links below.)
“USDA is committed to ensuring the process for developing the Dietary Guidelines for Americans is transparent and data-driven,” said Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue.
“We are looking forward to kicking off the committee’s review of the scientific evidence, along with public engagement throughout the process. The comment period is open, and we encourage everyone to visit the redesigned Dietary Guidelines website.”
The 2020 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee will be chaired by Barbara Schneeman, a former member of the faculty at the University of California at Davis who also served as the director of the Office of Nutrition, Labeling, and Dietary Supplements in the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition at the Food and Drug Administration. and Ron Kleinman, the physician-in-chief of MassGeneral Hospital for Children, will serve as vice chair.
Much of the committee’s work relies on conducting systematic reviews of published scientific evidence. USDA has changed the name of the Nutrition Evidence Library — the team responsible for this work — to Nutrition Evidence Systematic Review (NESR).
USDA has updated the Dietary Guidelines website and launched a new site for the NESR to make following the work easier.
–The Hagstrom Report