By Marika Sboros
Australian orthopaedic surgeon Dr Gary Fettke can no longer advise his diabetic patients on nutrition to prevent limb amputation. In particular, he cannot tell patients not to eat sugar.
Why not? Because the country’s medical regulatory body, Australian Health Practitioners Regulatory Authority (AHPRA), says so. AHPRA has gone further. Even if the dietary advice Fettke has given his patients so far ever becomes mainstream, it says he must still keep silent.
Doctors globally have reacted with surprise, shock and outrage in equal measure at AHPRA’s ruling. US professor of cellular biology Richard Feinman calls the action “unbelievable”. Feinman says AHPRA is “more concerned with saving face than saving lives”. Here’s why:
Dr Gary Fettke did not advise snake oil or an untested magic-bullet drug with serious side effects. Instead, he told patients to eat less sugar and other carbohydrates. He also told them to eat more healthy fats. In other words, he advised an LCHF lifestyle. Fettke defines LCHF as low-carb, healthy fats.
As an orthopaedic surgeon, Fettke sees many patients daily who are obese and diabetic. Both conditions are so common in Australia these days, as in other countries, that doctors call them diabesity.
Medical experts say that people with diabetes are far more likely to have a foot or leg amputated. Many diabetics have peripheral arterial disease that reduces blood flow to the feet. They also have nerve disease that reduces sensation.
Together, these conditions significantly up the risk of limb amputation.
Fettke would far rather not amputate people’s limbs. He prefers to help them keep their limbs if possible simply by changing their diets. The science is growing to suggest that LCHF may help.
That message hits hard at the heart of vested interests that benefit from conventional high-carb, low-fat nutrition “wisdom”.
It’s one that AHPRA and the Dietitians Association of Australia (DAA) dietitians who reported him don’t like to hear.
AHPRA has told Fettke: “The fundamental fact is that you are not suitably trained or educated as a medical practitioner to be providing advice or recommendations on this topic.”
These are the partners of the organisation from which the anonymous coward dietitian complainant against Gary came https://t.co/lHqtCJa2AT https://t.co/k0jxTsXUXM
— Dr Zoe Harcombe, PhD (@zoeharcombe) November 13, 2016
It says: “There is nothing associated with your medical training or education that makes you an expert or authority in the field of nutrition, diabetes or cancer. Even if, in the future, your views on the benefits of the LCHF lifestyle become the accepted best medical practice this does not change the fundamental fact that you are not suitably trained or educated as a medical practitioner to be providing advice or recommendations on this topic.”
In other words, says Feinman, “credentials are more important than the truth”.
Yet AHPRA appears to have overlooked fundamentals about Fettke that are important here.
Fettke is a cancer survivor. His experience with conventional treatment led him to research alternatives more than a decade ago. Thus began his interest and ongoing research in nutrition as an adjunct to conventional treatment not just for cancer. Fettke has also researched benefits of low-carb, healthy fats to treat and prevent obesity and diabetes.
Click here to read: CANCER THERAPY OF THE FUTURE? ALREADY HERE!
In going after Fettke, AHPRA may have opened a medical Pandora’s box that it may come to regret. It goes to the heart of what it means to be a medical doctor and who can advise patients on diet. It mocks the Hippocratic injunction to “first do no harm”. AHPRA’s action also undermines the wisdom of an ancient Chinese proverb that says: “He who takes medicine and neglects diet wastes the skill of the physician”.
It has been investigating Fettke for more than two years now. That was after the first anonymous complaint from a DAA dietitian in 2014. Earlier this year, AHPRA told Fettke to stop talking about nutrition until it had decided on a suitable sanction.
‘AHPRA is more concerned with saving face than saving lives’ – Prof Richard Feinman
Behind closed doors, with no right of reply or appeal for Fettke, AHPRA expanded its investigation to include the broad spectrum of LCHF. AHPRA has defended its complaints process as fair and balanced under the circumstances.
It also informed Fettke that it was investigating him for “inappropriately reversing (a patient’s) type 2 diabetes” – after another DAA dietitian’s complaint. Added to the list was that Fettke had been “disrespectful to health professionals”. In particular, this charge relates to the DAA and the Australian Heart Foundation on social media.
No names were mentioned. However, Fettke has pointed out that no patients have ever complained of harm. As well, he hasn’t ever attacked anyone by name in public. There is one notable exception – a senior medical administrator who has criticised him vociferously on and off social media.
AHPRA also accused Fettke of failing to disclose a conflict of interest (COI) in referring patients to dietitians at the Nutrition for Life Centre instead of the hospital dietitian. Although he does not work at the Centre, Fettke is the founder. He also still mentors the dietitians and wife, Belinda, runs the Centre.
Fettke told AHPRA that all the charges were groundless, including the COI. He has always declared his vested interest for all patients he referred to Nutrition for Life. He did admit “guilt” for not always doing so on social media. However, the doctor/patient relationship was “not defined in that context”. Fettke told the AHPRA it should not be applying jurisdiction in an undefined context.
AHPRA decided not to pursue the LCHF charge against him – probably a wise move. Fettke submitted “enough material on the compelling science on LCHF for a thesis”. AHPRA has also accepted that the benefits of LCHF may in future become accepted best medical practice.
Thus, it may just be co-incidence that Fettke received AHPRA’s full sanction within a few hours after testifying at an Australian Senate Inquiry on November 1. Click here to read the Hansard transcript of the Senate inquiry into the medical complaints process in Australia.
It makes sobering reading. Fettke and three other doctors gave moving testimony about bullying, harassment and intimidation by medical colleagues in the hospital industry.
Fettke described how doctors and dietitians have taken to social media to attack him. He referred to a Facebook “hate page” called Blocked by Pete Evans (BBPE). It started off attacking celebrity Paleo chef Evans but soon broadened into anything connected to LCHF.
DAA dietitians, a DAA spokesperson, nutrition academics, nurses, doctors and doctors’ wives comment regularly on it. As well, some BBPE admin fall under the AHPRA.
A GP on the page even tells Australian LCHF nutrition therapist Christine Cronau to “f …. off” and calls her a “moronic money-hungry charlatan”.
Many doctors in Australia are reluctant to go above the radar when criticising AHPRA for fear of retribution. However, in private they say that what goes on in Australian hospital corridors of power “wouldn’t be out of place in Nazi Germany”. That may not be far off the mark in effects on doctors’ careers, reputations and mental and physical health.
Fettke has described AHPRA’s action against him as “draconian”.
Australian cricket team doctor and professor of sports medicine at La Trobe University Dr Peter Brukner calls it “very disturbing”.
“It should be of concern to all health practitioners,” says Brukner. “We should be encouraging, not discouraging, doctors to give advice on lifestyle issues such as nutrition, exercise, sleep and stress management. These are the major causes of chronic diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease.”
Brukner says that as an orthopaedic surgeon, Fettke sees “first-hand the ravaging effects of diabetes shown by the increasing numbers of amputations he is required to perform”.
AHPRA should applaud, not condemn, the fact that Fettke is actively counseling patients on the lifestyle factors that may lead to these chronic diseases.
“Surely it is best to try and prevent these chronic diseases rather than treat the dire consequences.”
Brukner is also convenor of Australia’s SugarByHalf campaign that Fettke supports. It aims to reduce Australian’s intake of added sugars by half. “This alone would have a massive impact on the health of this country.”
He says it’s “ironic” that (AHPRA’s) decision came in the same week as the Australian Medial Association released its obesity policy. That policy emphasises the importance of exercise and nutrition to reduce the current epidemic of obesity. Two-thirds of Australian adults and a quarter of Australian children are overweight or obese.
“The medical profession should be leading the way in advocating improved nutrition,” Brukner says. “To say that doctors do not have the right to give nutrition advice is appalling.”
On the absence of an appeal process, Brukner says legislation should be “amended immediately” to allow every doctor to give nutrition advice.
Feinman calls AHPRA “medical gangsters”. They “don’t know science”, he says, and are “more concerned with saving face than saving lives”.
The medical establishment globally has “a long-standing hatred of low carb”, Feinman says. AHPRA is most likely afraid that people with diabetes will sue them and doctors for recommending the wrong diets.
“They are wrong and they know they are wrong,” Feinman says. To suggest that nutrition is so well-defined that AHPRA can say which doctors can and cannot advise on nutrition, is “absurd”. So are its “facts” against Fettke.
“This is not a medical problem,” says Feinman, “it’s a political problem.
“It’s about whether the medical profession can accept failure and go beyond the low-fat idea that is now in dispute, or whether they will just keep doing the same thing,” he says.
By that “same thing”, Feinman means “repressing any alternative point of view”.
On his website, Scottish GP Dr Malcolm Kendrick, author of The Great Cholesterol Con, says Fettke has suffered “the same fate as Tim Noakes”. That’s a reference to the Health Professions Council of SA (HPCSA) case against world-renowned scientist and University of Cape Town emeritus professor Tim Noakes for his views on LCHF. The HPCSA is the South African equivalent of Australia’s AHPRA.
Click here to read: NOAKES: ‘WHY I CHOOSE TO GO ON TRIAL’
Noakes can probably count himself lucky he is not living in Australia. The dietitian who first reported him to the HPCSA, Claire Julsing Strydom, may wish she were. That’s given the protection of anonymity AHPRA affords those who report doctors. AHPRA seems oblivious to the risk that raises of vexatious complainants.
It also seems oblivious of a common-law principle on which legal systems in democratic societies are premised world wide: that justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done.
Kendrick says that in Australia “it seems that you can be accused, tried and found guilty without having any chance to defend yourself in person”. This is not a court of law, he says. AHPRA can strike doctors off the roll and for doctors, that’s a “gigantic punishment”.
AHPRA declined to respond via email and on Facebook to requests for clarification on Fettke’s case earlier this year.
DAA CEO Clare Hewett responded to Fettke’s submissions to the Senate inquiry on the Hansard website. It says it is the “peak body of nutrition and dietetic professionals in Australia”.
Its members are “independent professionals who are free to make a comment or a complaint within their scope of practice, without instruction or permission from DAA”.
Click here for DAA’s full response.
It isn’t only medical experts who note the irony that DAA expelled a registered dietitian, Jennifer Elliott, who recommends an LCHF diet for people with diabetes.
Belinda Fettke says that legal experts have described AHPRA’s action as a “star chamber”. That’s a reference to legal shenanigans English King Charles I indulged in to enforce unpopular political and ecclesiastical policies.
She calls the action a “gross miscarriage of natural justice and complete failure of fair process”.
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The USDA (Department of Agriculture) has a committee of about 15 appointees which comes out every 5 years with dietary guidelines for Amercans. The process is loaded with industry paid representatives wanting to be heard before the final guidelines were issused for 2015. Of course Dr. Jeff Vokek and the low carb advocates were black balled from being heard. The big agri and big food interests will try to break anyone who gets in their way. It was Coke behind the Noakes complaint in South Africa. In Australia it is probably the sugar indusrty that is behind the charge.
Shills will be used but behind it all will be big money as always. Anyone who believes Fettke was threatened and treated this shamefully for just professional jealosy is a fool
If someone as knowlegeable and eloquent as Dr. Robert Lustig gets to testify before congress and advocates an added sugar tax the big boys will mess their pants.
Dietiticians have to pay a lot of money and continue education to keep their ‘practicing’ status, so they do have a vested interest in patch protection. Not sure if anyone is familiar with the ‘sugar’ book written by a lawyer – well he was crucified by the ADA… but then what happened? Soon after the ‘low sugar’ ads from the heart foundation, diabetes foundation and nutrition australia. So the message to cut back on sugar was right, it was just about ‘owning’ who has the right to say it. The bottom line (scuze the pun) is that if you pay for your access to the journals and databases used by dieticians, you know as much as them when it comes to evidence. You might not know anything about nutrition but you can still have access to evidence based (the body of evidence’ as it is referred to). We are all different so while a low carb diet works for one, it would be terrible for someone else, just like losing weight when you are over sixty and have less muscle, is detrimental to health not beneficial if you cut back on nutrients. Surely presenting a case series of clients benefits from low carb would be ‘evidence’ for a reversal of diabetes? You can also achieve a reversal in diabetes by a losing weight… however you do it.
“It is difficult for a man to understand somethig when his salary depend on him not understanding it.” Upton Sinclair, early 20th century American author
Perhaps the matter could be settled by a test of sugar and celluar metabolism administered to Dr. Gary Fettke and his challengers, proctored by a neutral expert.
Both Drs. Fettke and Prof Tim Noakes are heroes and to have their rights and facts challenged by these boards is outrageous.
How ridiculous, Gary has played fast and loose with the facts, cherry picking the science that suits his stand and ignoring (or trying to dismiss) that research which doesn’t. To see him on the 7-30 report now claiming to just be recommending a healthy diet with generic nutrition advice was just poor reporting.
From his website he says that “the consumption of sugar and polyunsaturated seed oils combine in our diet to create inflammation in every blood vessel wall and in every tissue in every organ of the body. The addition of refined carbohydrates including bread, white rice and pasta only aggravates the damage process.
Fructose (50% of Sugar), polyunsaturated oils and refined carbohydrates look to be the major contributors to most of our modern conditions including obesity, diabetes, heart disease, dementia, cancer and a raft of other conditions.”
That’s way beyond recommending “cutting sugar, lots of vegetables, pasture-fed meat, the right amount of oil”.
Gary doesn’t like having his pseudo-scientific bluff called and gets quite upset (and petty) when it is!
I have read all of the comments and with no intention to patronise, as a layman, a non-medical person, I congratulate all who have entered the debate. What I am surprised about is that so many seem in turn, to be surprised and even angry at what has happened to the good doctor. They forget that this is Australia.
In my lifetime, I’m in my 70s and have a science background, I have seen Australia and the character of Australia and Australian science change. Honesty, integrity and dare I say it, common sense, have been replaced by the extraordinary arrogance of those who consider themselves to be superior when they have, in all honesty no right to make such a claim.
We only have to look at the political landscape to see that we are prepared to allow those we have elected to run this country for us, to occupy themselves with those things that do not matter to us and to our children and grandchildren. In my lifetime we have become insular and inward looking as a nation and our politicians both parliamentary and others like the hierarchy in medicine have become obsessed with hanging on to power and ensuring re-election at any cost.
Although off topic indulge me. My wife has an extraordinary talent as an interior designer and hands on decorator. She no longer works but a decade or so ago she was doing some very delicate paint work and stenciling for a friend. A local painter “dobbed” her in to the Painters Registration Board which resulted in a visit from two men from the Board. They travelled some 500 kilometers (1000 round trip) to threaten my wife with legal action and a fine unless she stopped working. The painter who “dobbed” her admitted that he could not do the work, he didn’t have the skills.
Dr Fettke must be supported by everyone. Incidentally, as old as I am and with an immune system shot to pieces I am now off all carbs (apart from a biscuit with my first cup of tea in the morning – sorry!). I feel better by the day and Hallelujah I am losing weight!
A powerful statement, Roger. I was one of those who was surprised at how backward Australia is. I had heard about the unpleasant practice of “dobbing”. It doesn’t reflect well on the society Down Under. It is shocking to hear what happened to your wife. It’s a symptom of what is very sick in Australian civic society.
I had the very mistaken impression that your country was progressive about health and had a medical establishment that put patients before profits. Heaven knows where I got that one from. I am particularly shocked by the doctors and even a Launceston hospital adiministrator, who are active on the low-carb, Paleo hate page called Blocked By Pete Evans. They have a bad case of tall poppy-itis, it seems. When they aren’t going after popular Paleo chef Pete Evans for talking about the benefits of real food, they go after a doctor like Dr Gary Fettke. They show the most un-Hippocratic qualities in attacking such a distinguished colleague – or any colleague at all. Dr Fettke prefers not to make pots of money by having to amputate limbs. The doctors who attack him on the hate page should be given injections of medical ethics and common decency. But that’s only IMHO.
Dear Gary – The news is all good because, as I see it, any medical organization/association that declares that you “inappropriately reversed” a patients type 2 diabetes with a low-carb diet will surely soon become extinct through their own stupidity (yeah for Darwinism)!
As a Wise Man observed, ‘Science advances…. one funeral at a time…’
‘Evidence Based Medicine’ – My (no longer) Fat Foot !
By eating the direct opposite of all ACCREDITED Medical Advice…I lost 30kg in 6 months, kept it off for years, reduced my HbA1c from 14’s to 5’s whilst coming off all (diabetic) meds…. Ate ‘zero’ carbs, – not even fruit – and ate lots and lots of saturated FATS.
Is that called sufficient evidence, even as an Observational Study ?
This so called “randomised controlled trial” has been hijacked and abused by the Big food and Big Pharma. Epidemiological study is another game play by Big food and big pharma. The biochemical reactions and the science should be the first base in medicine.
Those involved in longevity studies have long discovered that the number one rule is optimal glucose disposal with minimal insulin secretion. Follow by maintaining lean muscle mass.
Dr Richard Berstein, a Type 1 diabetic survival from age 12 till age 82+, uncovered this truth by maintaining his blood glucose at 83mg/dl at all times – no diabetic complications at all.
All the bull about blood glucose will always rise to high level of 180mg/dl within the first hour and then return to baseline after two hours – result of taking high carbs, the damage is done within the first hour (inflammation when the body is flushed with glucose and has to deal with it by secreting lots of insulin.)
As for autoimmune disease go watch Gluten and the Gut Microbiome by Dr. Alessio Fasano. He explains how seemingly benign wheat (grains) can wreak havoc in the human body.
As far as I am aware, the strongest level of evidence is a randomised controlled trial – that’s normally what changes evidence base. So there’s an easy solution to this conundrum. Perhaps there’s more to this – at a forum held at a school by Dr Fettke and others I did hear some parents accused of causing type 1 diabetes in their young children due to their poor diet. As it is an autoimmune disorder, I’m reasonably sure there is no evidence to support this claim. But it resulted in some very guilt-ridden parents.
Sounds like something seriously lost in translation there! Also, you are right that randomised controlled trials are supposedly the “gold standard” of modern medicine. However, I advise you to read Stanford University professor John Ioannidis on what has happened to evidence-based medicine. He says it has been hijacked! http://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(16)00147-5/abstract
In this study sugar consumption was associated with progression of type 1 in children with islet autoimmunity or HLA genotype (which is the genotype linking type 1 with an increased risk of coeliac disease).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4529377/
Yet to be replicated, but another reason not to feed kids up on sugar and sodas.
ignaz semmelweis 1847, Dr Gary Fettke today!
If a person holding a certain degree wants to specialise in another specialty, get the formal qualifications. Dr’s do not cover very much nutrition in their degree so an additional piece of paper would save time and effort. AHPRA felt that there was enough evidence to investigate the complaint. They are doing their job. I feel its more the approach of LCNF lifestyle that has put many people off side. If this type of eating works for people then thats wonderful. However people choose to eat whatever they would like. I understand the passion of Dr. Fettke but this choice is not for everyone. That choice needs to be respected also, (which i presume would be in a dr’s code of competecncies). Yes it can be frustrating for dr’s and health care professionals with non compliant diabetic patients not adhering to nutritional suggestions. Again, its their choice. We can only do what we can.
Actually, from what I know of Dr Gary Fettke, he most definitely has core competency in nutrition after decades of research. This is just a turf war. Dietitians have appropriated to themselves a monopoly on advising the public on diet and nutrition. What do they think people did before their profession was invented not so long ago!? In my opinion, it doesn’t make any sense for a doctor to ignore what his/her patients are eating and drinking. I’d go further and say it’s a dereliction of duty. Some doctors are refusing to be held to ransom by poor nutrition education at medical school. Reminds me of that old Chinese proverb: “He that takes medicine and neglects diet wastes the skills of the physician.” I feel very strongly about this, as you may have gathered. Dietitians must keep up with science and offer patients ALL options, not just ones that fit their world view – or Big Food and Big Pharma pay masters.
“Dietitians have appropriated to themselves a monopoly on advising the public on diet and nutrition. What do they think people did before their profession was invented not so long ago!?”
Well they didn’t all become fat and/or diabetic for a start.
Here (in the UK) most dieticians roll out high-carb, low-fat (HCLF) for everyone, especially diabetics, then when it inevitably fails, they accuse the patients of “failing to comply” with the diet. When patients wise up and start eating low-carb, high-fat (LCHF) and significantly improve their health the dieticians accuse them of “secretly” eating HCLF.
I had a vision of two dieticians talking
“More than two thirds of my patients fail to comply with their diets”
“You were lucky, with me it’s more like three quarters”
“We’re not very good at this, are we? Oh well, I never wanted to be a dietician, I wanted to be . . . a lumberjack!”
Suzanne, diabetic patients often ignore dietitians because their advice is disastrous. “You’re carbohydrate intolorant, well eat carbohydrates, take drugs and get gradually worse.” The UK Times reported a “rebellion” against official advice by diabetics. There is a huge amount of evidence on this subject by people far better qualified than the average dimwit dietitian, but they won’t have ‘their’ area challenged.
Dr Fettke has carried out real research into this subject but he doesn’t have a formal qualification, so this is used as the excuse to shut him up. If Fettke did a useless course in nutrition, he’d have to say that eating natural fat was bad for people and caused heart disease. In short, he’d have to lie to be qualified in this stupid field. A 25-metre swimming certificate has more value than a degree in nutrition.
I can’t help noticing that when anyone defends the DAA, they can’t spell or punctuate, but they’re no doubt fully qualified in nutrition.
Suzanne, are you saying that Dr Fettke is guilty because he does not respect his patients eating preferences? Where does it say he forces the LCHF way of eating onto his patients? If he had a passion for a low-fat, lots of fresh vegetables-way of eating for his patients, would you find him guilty, too?
How about a passion for exercise, would that be wrong to educate patients about?
The doctor simply has to understand the pathway of metabolising carbs to understand that type 2 diabetics would be better off without them, also given that modern science has cleared saturated fat of all blame and that carbs are a non-essential nutrient. Dr Fettke understands that.
The fact that an organisation decides to pursue a complaint does not make the complaint legitimate or less ridiculous.
Dietetics is a religion with high priests preaching an unscientific dogma that is intolerant of questioning and other points of view.
Their God is the one of big Pharma and big Agriculture and all must bow down before their might or be declared heretics, subjected to their Inquisition and cast from the fold, forever to be publicly vilified and ridiculed for attempting to bring the light of scientific reason to the suffering masses.
As an Australian I find Aussie doctors as a whole to be a disgrace. I asked my local (overweight) GP for weight loss help and she said that if I ever came in to see her and she was skinny, that would mean a cure had been found. That was it, no other advice at all. The doctors are not taught and now nothing about nutrition.
I’ve seen several dietitians over the years and they also have no understanding of nutrition. They give out the same food plan. One (very overweight) dietitian told me that all I needed to do to lose weight was to put my knife and fork down for 15 sec between mouthfuls, she had no response when I asked her how that was working for her!
I’ve said it before and it didn’t go down well, but here it is again: can you – should you – trust a fat doctor or dietitian when seeking weight loss advice? .
Marika
I am overweight and I am a nutritional therapist. Part of the reason I trained in nutrition was to understand and manage my own situation better. I have been more overweight in the past than I am now, and will be less so in the future thanks to my training and greater understanding. I have successfully supported people in managing their weight in the past and fully intend to continue to do so. Indeed, I feel that having a weight problem makes me better at supporting others because I have more empathy and a less judgmental attitude than those who have never struggled. And, of course, it goes without saying that my weight was no barrier to gaining knowledge and understanding in my chosen field. In fact, I emerged from my training with the highest level of qualification that my university could offer.
I have found the low-carb approach helpful for myself and my clients but, of course, that’s anecdote, not evidence. There’s a whole lot more to this story in the literature than macronutrients.
Hi Susannah,
I’m glad you feel your weight problem makes you more effective, more empathic and less judgmental than dietitians and nutritionists without a weight problem. I’m not sure they’d feel the same way. Ditto for their clients. But who knows, maybe they’d agree with your opinion. If you ever research that hypothesis, I’d be interested to see your findings.
Personally, as I’ve said before, I wouldn’t go to a fat doctor, dietitian or nutritionist for advice on how to lose weight. In the same way, I wouldn’t go to a doctor, dietitian or nutritionist who still smokes or takes drugs for advice on how to quit. I also wouldn’t go to a psychologist still manifestly suffering from depression for help in overcoming my own depression. But that’s just my little quirk. Others may feel differently.
Re your weight as a barrier to academic success, did anyone ever tell you it would be a barrier? If so, that was most unkind and I’m glad you paid no heed. And well done on your highest level of qualification at your university. Fortunately, it’s not a rarity. I know many overweight academics in nutrition and other fields for whom their weight was no barrier to achieving that much-desired piece of paper.
As for your final comments: you say that you found the low-carb approach “helpful” for yourself and your clients. I don’t understand the implications of the rest of that sentence: “but, of course, that’s anecdote, not evidence”. Do you mean that you do not know of any evidence other than anecdotal evidence for efficacy of low-carb to treat obesity or related life-threatening diseases? If so, I can speedily rectify that by referring you to extensive body of literature to the contrary.
If I understood you correctly, I suggest you read The Big Fat Surprise by US science journalist Nina Teicholz and The Obesity Epidemic by British researcher Dr Zoë Harcombe.
Last but not least, and again if I read you correctly, has any low-carb medical doctor, scientist, academic, dietitian, nutritionist or other low-carb specialist told you there’s nothing more to low-carb science – or “story” as you call it – than macronutrients? If so, who said that? I’m probably just lucky none of the many global experts I’ve interviewed has said anything so ignorant to me. They all say macronutrients are just one part of the much bigger nutrition picture. They also all say that going back to eating real food is an important part and there are other parts still. I can give you references to the extensive literature by those experts as well, if you are not aware of it.
Well said, Kath. It’s amazing how consistently the words ‘overweight’ and ‘dietitian’ are found next to each other in the same sentence. Gary Taubes called nutrition pseudo-science and he’s right.
I might be missing something obvious, but why not just tack on a degree in nutrition and whatever liceensing necessary. Not that he should have to.
Of course, he could do that, but I agree that he shouldn’t have to. He has, after all, been researching nutrition in depth for more than a decade and he does have two medical degrees. And his advice is evidence-based. What more could the Australian Health Professions Regulatory Agency possibly want? They let in doctors from the US who promote conventional high-car, low-fat nutrition “wisdom” that is anything but evidence-based. It just doesn’t make sense. It seems to me that dietitians are behind this strange saga, and the AHPRA is their willing lackey.
I agree. I’m from the US and Keto community following this. Medicine and diabetes is a train wreck here in the US. As a RN, I can’t ethically recommend the ADA guidelines to diabetic patients.
Good for you, Denise. A dietitian with a conscience! Growing breed worldwide.
I like like to see the depth of endocrinology studies by dietitians.
I’d also like clear evidence of all sponsors at their functions.
Me too. Let me know if you ever come across it. I’ll do likewise. 😉
Anonymous denunciations of doctors heard in closed hearings. What sort of justice is this? It’s like something from Stalinist Russia. These dumb dietitians are so discredited and so frightened. They’re clinging on to the flat-earth theory and look ever more ludicrous.
I’m allowed to comment on nutrition, but Dr Fettke isn’t. That only makes sense to DAA sponsors in Australia.
When a free society evolves a system of justice, checks and balances and an appropriate degree of openness are put in place.
Thus we have rights to representation, disclosure, appeal, and the publication of details.
However, regulation of professions can see “courts” set up without these safeguards, and given powers without oversight or control by any higher authority such as government or the judiciary. Operating in secret, they are able to conceal their own errors, ignorance, and conflicts of interest. If such a body becomes captured by corrupt interests or malevolent individuals, society has little chance of discovering the fact, let alone correcting it, as the systems established never allowed for the possibility.
I think that Dr Feinman is right and that what we see here is gangsterism. AHPRA are taking the same attitude to the interests of medical professionals and their patients that the Painters and Dockers Union took towards the interests of their members and the public in the 1970s. They are as happy to see the effective prevention of diabetes and amputations by Gary Fettke as Tony Soprano would have been to see a more efficient refuse collection agency enter New Jersey.
They do not care about the public and their sufferings, they care even less about the harm done to those health professionals who are not their mates and supporters, they only care about protecting themselves and a small circle of corrupt cronies.
I agree about the closed systems though let’s not forget it could also be explained by stupidity not malice. These may just be intelligent educated people schooled in accepting what they are taught, and not taught to think. They have a kind of blind respect for authority which is as good as not having the intelligence in the first place. Most people are really resistant to change too especially if it threatens their identity, livelihood, values and beliefs – such as that fat is “bad”.
Hi Mary, Quite right and as Upton Sinclair said: “It’s difficult to get someone to understand something when (his/her) salary depends on not understanding it.”
Absolutely frightening to anyone with actual understanding of the difference between right and wrong. Government abuse of the citizenry is the main reason we had a public rebellion in our election in the U.S. Whether our choice leads to positive change remains to be seen. I’ve always thought Australians were no more prone to putting up with government thuggery than Americans (or the British, for that matter, or most sentient human beings). Has there been a public outcry? Is their media completely owned by industry, like ours is? Is there a real opposition party in Australia? We don’t have one in the U.S., so I wouldn’t be surprised if the answer is no.
“it was investigating him for “inappropriately reversing (a patient’s) type 2 diabetes –” I’m puzzled by this one. “Reversing” someone’s type 2 diabetes sounds like he cured them. How could that ever be inappropriate? It’s bizarre.
Hi Michael, and there I thought Prof Tim Noakes’ trial was Kafkaesque. Dr Gary Fettke’s secret trial was even more absurd. I had to read and read the bit about a dietitian complaining that he “reversed” someone’s diabetes “inappropriately”. That was verbatim. The Dietitians Association of Australia (DAA) appears to be behind Dr Fettke’s trial. In the same way as with Prof Noakes’ case, that the Association for Dietetics in SA (ADSA) are behind that prosecution. It’s a turf war. It’s bizarre.
Yup, a “turf war”. That is what it seems in large part to be.
Yes, there’s an element of hurt pride; yes, it’s possible that bodies that have been handing out bad advice now fear civil actions from damaged patients if they “fess up”; and, yes, there are probably some powerful economic interests keeping in the shadows and pulling the strings. But when all’s said and done, it seems there’s a large element of turf war in all this. Mostly this seems to be coming from dieticians – they want what turf they’ve managed to capture and fear to lose it. – although to be frank the advice of any random person pulled off the street would probably be as good, or as bad, as the average dietician’s.
And they really, really don’t like it when someone like Gary, or Tim, shows them up. Look at the bile spat by the appropriately named “Gabby” quoted above! I’d be ashamed to have gabbled something like that.
To accuse Gary of all people of lacking “morals” and “ethics” (which, except in some technical usages are synonyms anyway) beggars belief. Gary, as you say would rather not be cutting bits off people and knows how that could be avoided. He’s been prepared to put his reputation and career on the line to speak out about that. Now that’s morality.
Dietitians fear the low-carb diet because it threatens their one area of supposed expertise. How can they admit to being wrong for forty years about the one subject they’re meant to know about? Most doctors are far more willing to change when presented with the facts because they’re not utterly invested in the low-fat failure.
No one with any scientific ability wants to become a dietitain and the mediocre calibre of recruit can be judged by the utter idiocy of their leaders in the Tim Noakes affair. And also the crude, ignorant Facebook site, ‘Blocked by Pete Evans’. I don’t see physicists or any real scientists feeling the need to behave in this way. They’re intellectually secure and behave accordingly. The Nobel prize winning physicist Richard Feynman was ready to admit his mistakes and so he didn’t repeat them. He said, “When your results don’t fit your theory, your theory is wrong, no matter how elegant or how much you love it.” Since the low-fat theory was introduced obesity and diabetes have risen ten fold. Any real scientists in nutrition would be shocked by such utter failure, but instead they go to work and repeat the nonsense they were told when training. They hurt people every day. I know of no one working in science who doesn’t regard them with contempt.
I’m a bit confused here. You speak of bullying then seem to name and shame then attempt to bully an individual you name as the complainant in what I thought was an anonymous reporting system. I don’t know Dr Fettke, but it strikes me he has an opinion that is currently not accepted and attempted to bully everyone into his way of thinking and is now complaining . There are many health professionals pushing low-carb but maybe not that many traveling the world telling people sugar causes cancer?
Hi Nick, you’ve confused me totally.
I can’t help remembering the Australian doctor who showed that tummy ulcers were caused by bacteria and that surgery was unnecessary as antibiotics would cure the ulcer. The resistance he got from the profession was huge.
He was the West Australian doctor Barry Marshall, who showed that helicobacter pylori bacteria were a ‘missing link’ in peptic ulcer formation, and demonstrated how a combination of bismuth and antibiotic therapy could effect a ‘cure’. He was criticised for many years by establishment medicine and pharmacology, however he now has a Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology for his audacious ‘quackery’.
He should be investigated for inappropriately curing stomach ulcers.
Exactly, the medical professional don’t seem to understand the up side of freedom. Remember, this is partly been driven by a small group of sceptics, FOSIM. They aren’t so bright and some have a vendetta. They use social media to defame and bully. Our Victorian health minister is very close to them, would not be surprised if she is one of them. Jill Henessy was a big part of making it easier for anyone to complain, so then this small group could act in a vexatious manner. Nazi is the best word for it. Nazis they are. Ironically Jill, the Victorian health minister went on TV to complain about abusive tweets from those who were angry about no jab no pay. They were made up tweets too’ she used them to infer the other side were all bad and evil. Yet she, I believe, is actively part of the very groups that abused Dr Gary Fettek, as well as changing the regulations to make it easy to shut them down. Jill Hennessy is a sickness minister, not for our health at all. Responsible for brain damage of over 50,000 young people with aluminium. Please help to get this woman out.