A leading nutrition researcher who studied ultraprocessed foods has left the National Institutes of Health, citing censorship by agency officials.
Kevin Hall announced on social media Wednesday night that he had accepted an early retirement offer from the Department of Health and Human Services. He worked inside NIH for 21 years, primarily focusing on food, nutrition and how diets can contribute to chronic diseases.
Hall is perhaps best known for his research on ultraprocessed foods. In 2019, he released a study that is the first randomized controlled trial to evaluate an ultraprocessed foods diet.
The trial involved completely controlling and monitoring what subjects eat over a period of time in isolation. While this gives the research more credibility, it’s also more costly and difficult to execute.
The study found that participants assigned to a diet with ultraprocessed foods ingested more calories and gained more weight than those who had a diet of unprocessed foods.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and others in the Make America Healthy Again Movement have taken aim at ultraprocessed foods in past public statements. In his post, Hall said he was encouraged by bipartisan efforts to focus on diet-related chronic diseases and “new agency leadership professing to prioritize scientific investigation of ultra-processed foods.”
“I had hoped to expand our research program with ambitious plans to more rapidly and efficiently determine how our food is likely making Americans chronically sick,” Hall wrote in his post. “Unfortunately, recent events have made me question whether NIH continues to be a place where I can freely conduct unbiased science.”
Recently, Hall was part of another study that found ultraprocessed foods did not appear to be addictive in the same way as addictive drugs. Hall told CBS News that agency officials blocked him from being directly interviewed about this study.
Hall also told the New York Times that he was told by NIH officials that his name could not be included on a currently unpublished study because it included language about “health equity.” If he wanted his name to stay on the paper, that section would have to be modified, Hall told the outlet.
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In his post, Hall said he wrote to agency leadership with his concerns about these incidents but never received a response. Ultimately, this prompted his early retirement, he said.
“This is Orwellian,” said Marion Nestle, a long-time nutrition researcher and author of the Food Politics blog. “To do this to a researcher, this just seems shocking to me. All he's trying to do is do his science and try to get it right and try to interpret it accurately.”
Nestle said the research Hall’s team carried out was some of the most important in the nutrition space. She’s unclear if the facility and staff will remain in Hall’s absence.
An NIH spokesperson pushed back against Hall's assertions.
“It’s disappointing that this individual is fabricating false claims. NIH scientists have, and will, continue to conduct interviews regarding their research through written responses or other means,” an agency spokesperson said in an email. “We remain committed to promoting gold-standard research and advancing public health priorities. Any attempt to paint this as censorship is a deliberate distortion of the facts.”
In a now-deleted post, Calley Means, a key MAHA ally, criticized Hall’s characterization of his work at NIH and said his departure was the right move.
“Under his watch, childhood consumption of processed food skyrocketed to 70% of their diet,” Means wrote in the post. “The fact that Kevin was not loudly and clearly ringing the alarm bell is at best intellectual incompetence and at worst a moral failing.”
Hall responded to the post and said he reached out “many times” to start a discussion with Means.
“I would be happy to return to serve the American people and do the gold-standard, unbiased science to unravel the root causes of diet-related chronic diseases,” Hall said in another post.
Means did not respond to a request for comment.
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