Without providing a detailed account of the committee’s battles, nutritionist and activist Marion Nestle has characterized the revision as one of government surrender to special interests.5 To be sure, she is partially correct. Other histories have similarly characterized the committee’s actions, but without a close examination of the debates that occurred.6 However, a careful study of the committee’s activities is needed to reveal the complexities of this confrontation.7 Through such a narrative, we have shown that the committee, whose members included Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Hubert Humphrey (D, MN), and Robert Dole (R, KS), were faced with issues they were professionally incapable of resolving: conflicts within science over the interpretation of data, questions of scientific validity, and notions of proof. Ultimately, it was a lack of scientific consensus on all these factors, and not simply political acquiescence, that allowed special interests to gain a foothold in the debate and secure a modification of the initial guidelines on meat consumption.
As it was then, and as it is now, idiot politicians making policy on things they are completely incapable of understanding but rather operating off a political agenda. See also the banning of DDT and now decades of harmful policy over global warming climate change.
My hypothesis is that a big part of it was political.
The early 70s saw the first major high sustained monetary inflation coupled with high unemployment- (something the “experts” assured us was impossible)
Virtually overnight meat, butter, milk, cheese and all the staples did a moon shot in price. At the same time the expert rumblings declared meat & eggs & butter were “bad”. Awfully convenient. Protein always costs more, and fillers like potatoes pasta and rice became the way to fill up for reasons of affordability.
Hydrogenated vegetable oils were wartime expedients, the chief proponent in terms of diet was a guy named Ancel Keys. There is still much controversy about these and similar studies. Before the advent of these ersatz replacements heart disease & heart attacks were quite rare. So was Obesity for that matter.