| Founded | 1985 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Neal D. Barnard[1] |
| Focus | To promote non-animal methods in research and education (opposition toanimal testing) and aplant-based diet for disease prevention |
| Location |
|
| Members | 150,000 |
| Employees | 35 |
| Website | pcrm.org |
 |
| Part ofa series on |
| Veganism |
|---|
Groups |
Ideas |
Related |
ThePhysicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) is a non-profit research and advocacy organization based inWashington, D.C. According to Charity Navigator, the organization works for "compassionate and effective medical practice, research, and health promotion."[2]
The Physicians Committee was founded in 1985.[3] The nonprofit currently has nearly one million members, including 17,000 physicians.[4]
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) was founded in 1985.[5] PCRM currently has nearly one million members, including more than 17,000 physicians.[6]
In the late 1980s and 1990s, PCRM launched public educational programs, including a proposal for the federal government to promote four new plant-based food groups — fruits, grains, vegetables, and legumes — and efforts to challenge the use of animals in experiments and medical training.[7][8][9][10]
The PCRM releases an annual report ranking the healthfulness of hospital food. It also encourages hospitals to replace fast food with more healthful options.[11] In January 2016, PCRM placed billboards that read "Eat more chickpeas" near hospitals that hostChick-fil-A locations.[12] In May 2016, it spoke before the board ofGrady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta and erected billboards that read "Ask your local hospital to go #FastFoodFree."[13] In June 2016, Grady announced that itsMcDonald's was shutting down.[14]
When the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) announced in February 2015 that "cholesterol is not a nutrient of concern for overconsumption", the PCRM began working to keep cholesterol warnings in the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.[15] In March 2015,Neal Barnard presented oral testimony at theNational Institutes of Health,[16] stating: "for all its good work, the Committee made a scientific error on cholesterol and to carry this glaring mistake into the Guidelines is not scientifically defensible". In October 2015, the PCRM placed billboards reading "#CholesterolKills" near the Texas home offices of Agriculture Committee chairmanK. Michael Conaway.[17][18] In January 2016, the PCRM filed a lawsuit alleging that the DGAC recommended dropping limits on dietary cholesterol,[19] motivated by industry pressure, according to documents recovered by the PCRM under theFreedom of Information Act.
The 2015–2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, released in January 2016, set no limit but recommended Americans "eat as little dietary cholesterol as possible" due to "the commonality of food sources of saturated fats and dietary cholesterol".[20] On March 23, 2016, Neal Barnard toldThe Washington Post that he liked that "the guidelines reinstated the advice to eat as little cholesterol as possible and finally called out avegetarian eating pattern as one of three healthy options".[21]In 2021, the Committee sued USDA SecretaryTom Vilsack and Secretary of the Department of Health and Human ServicesXavier Becerra after the release of the guidelines, alleging the government's nutritional and dietary guidelines intentionally use difficult language to promote eating unhealthy foods.[22] A federal judge in San Francisco dismissed the lawsuit in February 2023.[22]
Since 2011, the PCRM has urgedWayne State University to end itsheart failure experiments on dogs. According to a 2015 review article by PCRM doctors in theAmerican Journal of Translational Research: "insights gleaned from decades of animal-based research efforts have not been proportional to research success in terms of deciphering human heart failure and developing effective therapeutics for human patients".[23] In 2015, actor and Wayne State alumnaLily Tomlin joined the PCRM in urging Wayne State to end its dog experiments.[24] In September 2015, the PCRM placed billboards inDetroit that told the story of one of the dogs who died in the experiments.[25]
On June 30, 2016,The Washington Post reported that theUniversity of Tennessee—the last remaining school to use animals—e-mailed the PCRM that "effective immediately, the University of Tennessee College of Medicine Chattanooga has ceased to provide surgical skills training for medical students using live animal models".[26] Over the years, the Physicians Committee demonstrated and placed billboards leading to the decision.[27][28] The University of Tennessee's announcement followed the decision by theJohns Hopkins University School of Medicine to end live animal use in its surgery-skills training. In 2014, PCRM members demonstrated outside the university.[29] In February 2016, the PCRM worked withMaryland State DelegateShane Robinson to introduce a bill to end the practice in Maryland.[30] On May 18, 2016,The Baltimore Sun reported that Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine would stop using live animals.[31]
Since 2007, the PCRM has urged reform of theToxic Substances Control Act of 1976. On June 22, 2015, PresidentBarack Obama signed into law theFrank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, which contains language requiring chemical companies and theEnvironmental Protection Agency to replace and reduce the use of animal tests and increase the use of human-relevant methods. The Physicians Committee supported the passage of this law.[32]
The New York Times writes that, in 2004, the PCRM passedRobert Atkins's postmortem medical report toThe Wall Street Journal. The report, obtained by Richard Fleming of the Fleming Heart and Health Institute, showed that Atkins himself had experienced aheart attack,congestive heart failure, and weighed 258 pounds. Atkins supporters countered that there was no reason to suppose that his heart problem (cardiomyopathy) was diet-related, and that the PCRM had received the coroner's report in violation of federal law.[33]
In 2004, Amy Lanou, the organization's nutrition director in 2004, criticized theU.S. Department of Agriculture for promoting high-fat, high-calorie products, such as certain brands of cookies and fast-food products.[34]Susan M. Levin, the PCRM's director of nutrition education, sent a letter in March 2009 to theminor league baseball team, theWest Michigan Whitecaps, to object to a four-pound, 4,800-calorie hamburger on the team's concession-stand menu, and to ask that the team put a label on the burger indicating that it was a "dietary disaster".[35] The PCRM has also spoken out against theLas Vegas restaurantHeart Attack Grill.[36][37]
The Physicians Committee advertising campaign "I was lovin' it", a spoof of theMcDonald's advertising slogan "I'm lovin' it", was used in a September 2010 advertising campaign encouraging consumers to adopt avegetarian diet to avoid the health risks associated with the high levels of dietary fat,cholesterol, and sodium in McDonald's food. The campaign launched in the Washington, D.C., area showed a grieving woman in a morgue, as the camera circled around a middle-aged man draped in a white sheet and clutching a partially-eaten hamburger.[38] The group highlighted the high levels of fat and sodium in products such as the "Double quarter pounder with cheese extra value meal", which at the time contained 61 grams of fat and 1,650 milligrams of sodium.[39][40] The group chose Washington, D.C., as the first city for the campaign because it had the second-highest rate of deaths associated with heart disease.[41] McDonald's called the ad "outrageous, misleading and unfair", and encouraged customers "to put such outlandish propaganda in perspective, and to make food and lifestyle choices that are right for them." TheNational Restaurant Association called such ads misleading, saying that they unnecessarily focus on a single item to "distort the reality that the nation's restaurants are serving an increasing array of healthful menu choices."[38]
In 1999, PCRM conducted a diabetes study with Georgetown University that investigated the impact of a low-fat, vegan diet on glycemic and lipid control in patients with type 2 diabetes.[42] In 2000, PCRM conducted a study with Georgetown on the effect of a similar diet for menstrual pain.[43][44]
In 2010, PCRM launched its 21-Day Vegan Kickstart, a free program that offers meal plans, recipes, and guidance to try a plant-based diet.[45] The program has since expanded to reach participants in multiple languages and countries.[46][47]
The Physicians Committee has advocated for legislative change to improve public health.[48] It supported efforts that led to hospital food legislation, requiring plant-based meal options in hospitals, and contributed to reforms in chemical safety laws, including theFrank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (TSCA reform), promoting alternatives to animal testing in chemical safety evaluation.[49]
In 2001, the Physicians Committee won a lawsuit against the USDA, with the US District Court ruling that the USDA violated federal law by withholding documents revealing bias among the dietary advisory panel — the council had included individuals representing theNational Dairy Council, theNational Cattlemen's Beef Association, theAmerican Egg Board, and theNational Dairy Promotion and Research Program Board.[50][51][52]
In 2011, the organization successfully petitioned theU.S. Department of Agriculture to revise its dietary guidelines, contributing to the development of MyPlate as a replacement for the traditional food pyramid.[53][51]
PCRM had in the past received donations from animal protection groups, includingPeople for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), as cited in 2004 byThe Guardian.[54]
[I]ndividuals should eat as little dietary cholesterol as possible while consuming a healthy eating pattern. In general, foods that are higher in dietary cholesterol, such as fatty meats and high-fat dairy products, are also higher in saturated fats. The USDA Food Patterns are limited in saturated fats, and because of the commonality of food sources of saturated fats and dietary cholesterol, the Patterns are also low in dietary cholesterol.
| Main articles |
|  |
|---|---|---|
| Testing on | ||
| Issues | ||
| Controversial experiments | ||
| Companies | ||
| Groups and campaigns |
| |
| Writers and activists | ||
| Legislation | ||
| Diets | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| People |
| ||||
| Films |
| ||||
| Books, studies | |||||
| Organizations | |||||
| Key concepts | |||||
| Nutrition | |||||
| Food | |||||
| Drink | |||||
| Related | |||||
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
