Can Robert F. Kennedy, Jr influence the Dietary Guidelines? Most definitely, yes.

The 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) report is well underway.   The committee either has submitted or is about to submit its report to HHS and USDA;.  The report has not yet been posted, but presumably will be posted soon.

But understand: the scientific advisory committee is just that: advisory.

The agencies, HHS and USDA, are responsible for writing the actual guidelines.  They choose an internal committee to do that work.  That new committee can pick, choose, add, or subtract from the advisory committee’s report.

So yes, the new Secretaries of HHS and USDA can have a lot of input (and veto power) into the new guidelines.

As I’m fond of repeating, the guidelines process was quite different when I was on the DGAC in 1995.  Then, our committee chose the research topics, reviewed the research, wrote the advisory committee report, and wrote the actual dietary guidelines.  The agencies made only minor tweakings.

The agencies have written the guidelines since 2005, making the process much more subject to politics.

The DGAC, for example, viewed the evidence on ultra-processed foods as too limited to take a stand, yet RFK, Jr says ultra-processed foods are killing us.

The development of the 2025-2030 guidelines will be most interesting to watch.  Stay tuned.