Posted on 04/26/2012 5:09:53 AM PDT by EBH
The state of North Carolina has its own "Board of Dietetics and Nutrition"--of course it does--and it has decided that one bloggers right to free speech ends where the North Carolina Board of Dietetics and Nutrition's officious overbearingness begins, as I think Oliver Wendell Holmes (or was it Oliver Wendell Douglas?) once wrote.
Here's the naughty bits, as reported in Carolina Journal:
[When] Steve Cooksey...was hospitalized with diabetes in February 2009, he decided to avoid the fate of his grandmother, who eventually died of the disease. He embraced the low-carb, high-protein Paleo diet, also known as the “caveman” or “hunter-gatherer” diet. The diet, he said, made him drug- and insulin-free within 30 days. By May of that year, he had lost 45 pounds and decided to start a blog about his success.
But this past January the state diatetics and nutrition board decided Cooksey’s blog — Diabetes-Warrior.net — violated state law. The nutritional advice Cooksey provides on the site amounts to “practicing nutrition,” the board’s director says, and in North Carolina that’s something you need a license to do.
Unless Cooksey completely rewrites his 3-year-old blog, he could be sued by the licensing board. If he loses the lawsuit and refuses to take down the blog, he could face up to 120 days in jail.
The board’s director says Cooksey has a First Amendment right to blog about his diet, but he can’t encourage others to adopt it unless the state has certified him as a dietitian or nutritionist.
Seems he came to their attention after contradicting a local hospital's director of diabetes services at a local meeting, and handing out cards about his site. What did the Board find objectionable about Cooksey's site?
Cooksey posted a link (6.3 MB PDF download) to the board’s review of his website. The document shows several Web pages the board took issue with, including a question-and-answer page, which the director had marked in red ink noting the places he was “assessing and counseling” readers of his blog.
“If people are writing you with diabetic specific questions and you are responding, you are no longer just providing information — you are counseling,” she wrote. “You need a license to provide this service."
The board also found fault with a page titled “My Meal Plan,” where Cooksey details what he eats daily.
In red, [Dietetics and Nutrition Board director] Burril writes, “It is acceptable to provide just this information [his meal plan], but when you start recommending it directly to people you speak to or who write you, you are now providing diabetic counseling, which requires a license.”
The board also directed Cooksey to remove a link offering one-on-one support, a personal-training type of service he offered for a small fee.
Cooksey posts the following disclaimer at the bottom of every page on his website:
“I am not a doctor, dietitian, nor nutritionist … in fact I have no medical training of any kind.”
The bureaucrat speaks!
Charla Burill, the board’s director, told Carolina Journal she could not discuss the details of Cooksey’s case because his website is still under investigation, but agreed to talk about the law in the hypothetical....
Burill said [Cooksey's] disclaimer may not protect a nutrition blogger from the law.
“If I’ve given you reason to not worry that I don’t have a license because I have all these other reasons I’m an expert, you could still harm the public,” she said. “At least you’re not trying to mislead the public, but you’re trying to get the public to trust you.”....
Burill said if Cooksey refuses to come into compliance with the law, the board could file for an injunction.
The paleo diet--a passionate fad and/or lifestyle change of an enormous number of folk I know concentrated in the world's of libertarianism, futurism, space, and your basic "new digital economy" (does that still exist?) and the places where all those interests intersect--may or may not save you from diabetes, give you the pep you need, or revert you back down the evolutionary chain, or whatever it's supposed to do.
But that someone should be able to describe his experiences with it and advocate for his own good results should go without saying, though my saying that may well contradict a directive of the California Board of Going Without Saying.
The board's review of Cooksey's site. in remarkably official-looking pen scrawls in margins of a printout of the site.
Read Cooksey's site if you care to--it ain't illegal (yet).
In a previous century, I wrote about the Federal Trade Commission's power to essentially censor speech when it comes to claims about chiropraxy.
I know I read several months ago that they are studying and finding connections to using a low carb-high protein diet to not only control diabetes, but in rare instances get it to go into remission.
The healthiest human I know follows the Paleolithic diet.
I swear the guy looks 15 years younger than his actual age.
I do NOT understand it but the main stream medical community has ALWAYS been against the food is your best medicine line of thinking. Another tactic that improves almost everyone’s health is fasting. The book Eat Right For Your Blood Type is also a very good resource.
The drug companies etc just want to sell more medications, needles, etc. What a racket.
Follow the money.
There must be nutrionists losing business to people going on the cave man diet.
Did they move to ban the books too?
Is it the money, or is there something inherent in the leftist mindset that says we shouldn’t eat meat?
An evolutionary assumption, perhaps? (”A dog is a rat is a pig is a boy”)
I always look at the root cause of leftism for the answer to any question about their conclusions - and that root is the rejection of the Truth of God.
This is where he really crossed the line in the boards view I believe, taking money to "support" someone with their diet.
The caveman diet is really close to Adkins, and that diet saved my life so I have no problem with what he is saying either.
There you go - the bureaucrat, thinking of all of us individuals as "one public" who "could be" harmed by this guy, thus they shut him down. Nanny state goes wild.
Always follow the money. This guy was probably alright until he started charging “a small fee” for individual counseling. I have no problem with free adults deciding to exchange money for advice but, to the fascists in government, no such right of contract can go unregulated.
Did “Dear Abby” have a license to practice counseling/therapy?
It’s kind of ironic; here is a diabetic trying to help other diabetics and they say no-you need a license.
But when Paula Dean announced she had been diabetic for 3 years, the SHTF and people said she should have been helping other diabetics cook/eat better foods, instead of her (delicious) Southern “high-fat” cooking. Is she a certified nutrionist?
So, which is it?
How soon before anyone who e-mails a friend about the low cost, low risk, benefits of Coconut Oil on Alzheimer’s or the John Hopkins research on high fat diets having a success rate of over 70% on epilepsy (Steven Speilberg’s son benefited from this)will be silenced?
I do agree however if you are going to charge for advise you are stepping across the line but to offer a list of what you are eating is, or at least was, to have been protected First Amendment speech prior to the communist takeover of this country.
Decades ago Mr. M and I lived on a beach with some friends out away from any civilization except the beer truck which went through twice a week to the copra plantation. Warm beer. yum. So we lived on fish and beer and cabbage and tortillas. Once every two weeks we would drive 60 miles to the little indian village and if they were baking, buy up as much bread and we could. We were so starved for carbs. I lost a lot of weight. All pre-Adkins diet.
Cooksey should rewrite his blog with words to the effect ...
"Due to overbearing, self serving, power grabbing, intrusive, stifling, close-minded, bigoted, self-important, threatening, pencil-pushing popinjays, I'm amending my blog to curtail what was once quaintly referred to as "freedom of speech".
As the elitists lay claim to our bodies through the amorality of Obamacare, their dictates are going to become more and more intolerant, confining and extreme.
Right now they harass and attack smokers but soon they will be after everyone who does not speak and act like a brainless, soulless robot - the perfect socialist citizen.
“You vil eat pink slime! And, you vil like it!”
After having put on WAY, WAY, WAY too much weight despite trying many “diets” I had a brain storm. I tried my “idea” and have dropped a little over ONE HUNDRED POUNDS so far.
My Doctor frowned at the start, advising against “the plan”, but admits and smiles at great blood pressure, blood work, “in the little jar” tests, and everything else.
My only problem is the VAST expenditure for clothes that won’t fall off. The only articles still usable are socks, ties and handkerchiefs. Everything else, from the skin out had to go, including a suit I’d NEVER worn.
So here I am, enjoying my “FUN DIET”, having a hell of a good time losing a whole lot of me, but knowing it wouldn’t be approved.
I’d spell it out, but I don’t want the FOOD POLICE on my trail.
Go ahead and spell it out
I fast quite a bit.
People these days have made eating a hobby “foodies” they call themselves. Some cannot miss a single meal without having a complete meltdown.
I have the same issue with having to replace too big clothes and have found that for women anyway, the small sizes get snapped up.
I weigh 100 lbs. This is not an unusual weight for a woman pre WW2. Now there are so many large people it is disturbing.
I think this is an interesting case as there are a number of forums where the site founders or long-standing members do answer questions and give advice, albeit with disclaimers like Cooksey.
Are they going to go after sites like Brain-Talk Communities or the Feline Diabetes Message Boards? It was the old Brain Talk Communities that helped me get a medical condition under control through the use of nutrition as an adjunct therapy. And the Feline Diabetes Message Board literally saves the lives of cats diagnosed with diabetes, by things as simple as switching to low carb or no carb diets. And what about some of the menopause websites that advocate a nutrition based plan and give advice on how to make it work?
All of those sites request a small fee or donation to help keep the ‘support’ groups on the web...have all those members crossed the line in giving advice based on their experience?
On several occaisons over the last fifteen years the FDA has paid for studies investigating the feasibility of making vitamins available only by prescription. Their plans included appropriations for armed FDA agents to raid bulk supplement distributors across the country.
Imagine three guys in a jail cell, one’s in there for selling crack, another is in there for heroin possession, and another for Centrum Silver.
They are God, that is why. And they don’t want to follow God’s commandments, view them as guidelines at most
About 99.999% of humanity has the exact same allele set for growth and operation of the liver! Then there are these other people in Scandinavia who have 82 different sets!
They can eat raw seal's liver ~
Bumpo
hmmm... where did THAT idea come from...
oh yeah... “you will be as gods, knowing good and evil”
Well, if you’re in NC, you can talk about it, you just can’t recommend it.
I would like to think this is yet another result of the encroaching socialism in NC brought about by transplanted northerners, but it’s likely this board has been around for quite a long time. NC is VERY into regulation and government. For example (and people tend not to believe me, but it’s true), it’s easier to get a concealed-carry permit in WA (I’m talking Pierce Country—Tacoma, Olympia area) than in Raleigh, NC. Hell, it was easier to get my permit in WA than it was in Augusta, GA.
Oh I do recall that as I wrote during one of the open comment periods against just such a law/rule. The last time Sen. John McCain was one of the supporters and sponsors of taking suppliments away!
Just last year in fact:
The FDA is Taking Action to Ban Natural Supplements
and there is always the power of the Executive Order
Obama signs legislation to make supplements and alternative health remedies illegal and that was in 2010.
"Seems he came to their attention after contradicting a local hospital's director of diabetes services at a local meeting, and handing out cards about his site."
There ya go. Publicly contradicting a bureaucrat, and making clear it wasn't a one-time event.
The drug companies etc just want to sell more medications, needles, etc. What a racket.
That’s exactly what it is. I am convinced that God provided us with everything we need to maintain a healthy body and I don’t think pharmaceuticals are part of the program.
It is not about the blogging, it is the fact that he is soliciting monies to be paid as a consultant which has him up for problems. Nothing ever happens without credentials anymore.
Because it works and is 180 degrees opposite of what doctors recommend.
The big-government/big-corporate medical monopoly does not tolerate competition.
Think about it. Doctors and dieticians make MONEY from fat, sick people. ADKINS cures so many ills. I personally know a diabetic in complete remission by using it.
The only people I know who hate it are employed by exploiting illness. One dietician gave me about 35 pages of anti Adkins propaganda when I just mentioned it!
I also mentioned that I had lost 30 pounds in one month...
Sad to say but it looks like North Carolina is trying to become the Californicate of the east coast.
That's an interesting take. I've come to the conclusion that the root cause of leftism (a word I don't like) is sin.
People that allow sin to control them still understand on some level that God's word is what fulfills us in life and His rules are what helps guide us to be the healthiest and happiest that is possible in our circumstances. Regardless some still embrace sin and when the fruit of their behavior is revealed they lash out like spoiled children who want to continue to sin but don't want to reap what they have sown.
The more they embrace their lifestyle of sin the more they hate Christians and Christ. Homosexuals, Drug addicts, the promiscuous, Adulterers, serial monogamists, megalomaniacs, and the majority of Politicians (but I repeat myself) fill their lives with sin. They wallow in it, take pride in it, and when it doesn't fulfill them or makes them ill or sick or incarcerated, they lash out at Christianity.
We are all sinners of course and it is only by the grace of God and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that we are saved.
But this past January the state diatetics and nutrition board decided Cooksey’s blog — Diabetes-Warrior.net — violated state law. The nutritional advice Cooksey provides on the site amounts to “practicing nutrition,” the board’s director says, and in North Carolina that’s something you need a license to do.
Unless Cooksey completely rewrites his 3-year-old blog, he could be sued by the licensing board. If he loses the lawsuit and refuses to take down the blog, he could face up to 120 days in jail.
ALWAYS include a disclaimer...you'll see it on 99% of such blogs, columns, books. Its pretty generic -
One column I used to write that was almost exclusively about home remedies was even titled “IT works for Me” - and I would write about what I, personally did, in regards to ‘formulas’ or ‘treatment.” I didn't advise anyone else to follow suit, “just sharing what I do and what works for me.You're on your own. Read, research and decide for yourself.”
Never had a problem with the long, nosy arm of the establishment.
As far as feline diabetes heck no, with the others it all depends on how it’s presented I guess. It is an interesting case, personally I do think some sites will go too far in what they do or say as far as health issues go if money is involved.
Advise is one thing, opinions are like belly buttons, but actively coaching it for money from someone who he has no knowledge of their overall health except what they tell him - Just over the line imho.
As a registered dietitian who faithfully lives by the Atkins Diet, I find this disturbing. My goodness, where does all of this “Big Brother” stuff end. Sure, I worked five long years to earn my nutrition credentials but if someone wants to give nutrition advice based on their experiences and do not claim to bt a nutrition professional, go for it. 95% of the dietitians I know think Atkins was whacked, I personally think he was one of he best nutritional minds out there!
I am a off, on again vegetarian.
Nothing to do with liberalism or politics. Actually feel pretty good when I am eating vegetarian but go back to meat(chicken/fish and lean red meats) just because I like eating meat.
I post on several fitness sites and nothing is ever brought up by the posters about politics or liberalism causes why they eat vegetarian. It's a fitness thing.
My gf has the same lifestyle and we both lift 4 days a week and do marathons/triathalons
MrB, Don't throw in politics in everything in life.
bfl
We wouldn’t be so likely to point out the politics of every issue if the left didn’t try to make everything a matter of the government forcing us to comply with the left’s opinions on every issue.
i lost 60 - no longer diabetic, low blood BP - first ever - great cholesterol
Adkins is ok short term but like any fad diet they are harmful in the long term. Your brain needs quit a bit of good carbs to function properly.
A good rule of thumb is 40% protein, 40% good carbs and 20% good fats per day.
More specifically, it's their denial of the existence of Free Will.
All ya gotta do is include the disclaimer that you're not advising anyone else to follow your plan - that you're merely sharing what worked/works for you. and write in a first person way - no 'you should' no "do this' - and you are covered.
Look at the generic disclaimers in any such articles/books.
As a writer of home/folk/natural remedies for over a quarter century, I have followed the simple rule on the disclaimer. Yes, we have - still - free speech, but there are limits, like - you can't yell FIRE in a theater if there is none." Just take the disclaimer in the book "The Paleo Diet" itself. Even though written by a doctor, he includes: "The information contained in this book is not intended to serve as a replacement for professional medical advice. Any use of the information in this book is at the reader's discretion. The author and the publisher specifically disclaim...A health care professional should be consulted regarding your specific situation."
Really simple. folks. Just follow the rule. Not everything is Machiavellian...although we can't be blamed these days for being suspicious.
Try going to the druggist without a scrip. 70 years ago you could get cocaine, or heroin, and no one got shot.
That's becoming popular but I have never tried it yet. I do feel pretty good when I eat 200-300 less calories per day than my maintenace calories but only do this for cutting purposes as I don't want to lose lean muscle mass.
They tormented Dr. Atkins all his life and now they are making billions off the same idea.
This is actually a good question. Are all those diet book authors licensed by the state? Are bookstores liable for bring such books into the state? In which state is the blog hosted?
Actually, I believe this is correct decision, and a generally held principle not just at the state, but also the federal level.
Don’t think of it in terms of nutrition, but of “practicing medicine without a license.” Which puts a whole new spin on this.
Granted, nutritionists are not doctors, but this man is, in effect, giving medical advice to people without knowing any of their medical background. This is a very dangerous thing to do, and is strictly prohibited to the *entire* supplement and alternative medicine business in the US.
The FDA regularly wipes out businesses that do this. You do *not* offer personal medical advice. With diets it is always, “ask your doctor if this is right for you”, or “check with your doctor before trying this.” Lots of other disclaimers.
The actual content of his diet is not really important. I rather like diets similar to the Paleo diet, like Atkins, which do work, yet are not approved of by many nutritionists. But while I might recommend that they work, I will not tell an unknown person that it is right for them.
It is not really a fine line, here. But this guy has crossed that line.
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