Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine

Part of a series on
Veganism
List of vegans Vegan nutrition Vegan studies
Groups American Vegan Society Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine The Vegan Society
Ideas Abolitionism Animal-free agriculture Animal rights Carnism Ethical eating Sentientism Speciesism Vegan organic agriculture Veganuary World Vegan Day
Related List of vegan and plant-based media Vegetarianism Plant-based diet
v t e

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) is a non-profit research and advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C. According to Charity Navigator, the organization works for "compassionate and effective medical practice, research, and health promotion."^[2]

The PCRM releases an annual report ranking the healthfulness of hospital food. It also encourages hospitals to replace fast food with more healthful options.^[3] In January 2016, PCRM placed billboards that read "Eat more chickpeas" near hospitals that host Chick-fil-A locations.^[4] In May 2016, it spoke before the board of Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta and erected billboards that read "Ask your local hospital to go #FastFoodFree."^[5] In June 2016, Grady announced that its McDonald's was shutting down.^[6]

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.^[7] In March 2015, Neal Barnard presented oral testimony at the National Institutes of Health,^[8] 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 chairman K. Michael Conaway.^[9][10] In January 2016, the PCRM filed a lawsuit alleging that the DGAC recommended dropping limits on dietary cholesterol,^[11] motivated by industry pressure, according to documents recovered by the PCRM under the Freedom 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".^[12] On March 23, 2016, Neal Barnard told The Washington Post that he liked that "the guidelines reinstated the advice to eat as little cholesterol as possible and finally called out a vegetarian eating pattern as one of three healthy options".^[13] In 2021, the Committee sued USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack and secretary for Department of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra after the release of the guidelines, alleging the government's nutritional and dietary guidelines intentionally use difficult language to promote eating unhealthy foods.^[14] A federal judge in San Francisco dismissed the lawsuit in February 2023.^[14]

Since 2011, the PCRM has urged Wayne State University to end its heart failure experiments on dogs. According to a 2015 review article by PCRM doctors in the American 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".^[15] In 2015, actor and Wayne State alumna Lily Tomlin joined the PCRM in urging Wayne State to end its dog experiments.^[16] In September 2015, the PCRM placed billboards in Detroit that told the story of one of the dogs who died in the experiments.^[17]

On June 30, 2016, The Washington Post reported that the University 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".^[18] Over the years, the Physicians Committee demonstrated and placed billboards leading to the decision.^[19][20] The University of Tennessee's announcement followed the decision by the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine to end live animal use in its surgery-skills training. In 2014, PCRM members had demonstrated outside the university.^[21] In February 2016, the PCRM worked with Maryland State Delegate Shane Robinson to introduce a bill to end the practice in Maryland.^[22] On May 18, 2016, The Baltimore Sun reported that Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine would stop using live animals.^[23]

Since 2007, the PCRM has urged reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976. On June 22, 2015, President Barack Obama signed into law the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, which contains language requiring chemical companies and the Environmental Protection Agency to replace and reduce animal tests and increase the use of human-relevant methods. The Physicians Committee supported passage of this law.^[24]

The New York Times writes that, in 2004, the PCRM passed Robert Atkins's postmortem medical report to The Wall Street Journal. The report, obtained by Richard Fleming of the Fleming Heart and Health Institute, showed that Atkins himself had experienced heart 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.^[25]

The organization's nutrition director in 2004, Amy Lanou criticized the U.S. Department of Agriculture for promoting high-fat, high-calorie products, such as certain brands of cookies and fast-food products.^[26] Susan M. Levin, the PCRM's director of nutrition education, sent a letter in March 2009 to the minor league baseball team, the West 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".^[27] The PCRM has also spoken out against the Las Vegas restaurant Heart Attack Grill.^[28][29]

The Physicians Committee advertising campaign "I was lovin' it", a spoof of the McDonald's advertising slogan "I'm lovin' it", was used in a September 2010 advertising campaign encouraging consumers to adopt a vegetarian 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.^[30] 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.^[31][32] 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.^[33] 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." The National 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."^[30]

PCRM had in the past received donations from animal protection groups, including People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), as cited in 2004 by The Guardian.^[34]

• Official website