Tag: Association for Dietetics in SA

Jun28201928th Jun 201928th Jun 20193Commentsby Marika

Noakes celebrates anniversary: victory over diet mobsters

Posted in LCHF, noakestrial

Prof Tim Noakes receives a  standing ovation in London in 2018, with Dr Aseem Malhotra (centre) and Dr Peter Brukner (right)

By Marika Sboros

Prof Tim Noakes celebrated a remarkable anniversary recently. It was June 8, 2018, a year since he became a free man, legally speaking.

On that day, the legal sword of Damocles that the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) had dangled over his head for more than four years, disappeared.

Given its behaviour so far, the HPCSA did what many thought it wouldn’t do on that day. It dismissed its prosecution lawyers’ appeal against its comprehensive not-guilty verdict for Noakes in April 2017.

The HPCSA’s own appeal committee confirmed the not-guilty ruling in its entirety. It found Noakes not guilty on all 10 aspects of a charge of unprofessional conduct. Click here to read a report and the full decision. That decision reverberates to this day through medical, dietetic and scientific fraternities globally.

Noakes and I have included a chapter on the appeal in our new book, Real Food On Trial. The subtitle says it all: How the diet dictators tried to destroy a top scientist (Columbus, 2019). It’s an update of Lore of Nutrition, Challenging Conventional Dietary Beliefs (Penguin 2017).

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Jun10201810th Jun 201814th Jun 201934Commentsby Marika

NOAKES FREE AT LAST, HPCSA LICKS ITS WOUNDS

Posted in LCHF, noakestrial

By Marika Sboros

South African scientist Prof Tim Noakes is a free man. Noakes has won his final battle with the Health Professions Council of South Africa on a charge of professional misconduct for a single tweet.

The HPCSA’s committee has dismissed an appeal against the comprehensive not-guilty verdict for Noakes in April 2017. (Click here to read the full decision.)

The unanimous ruling came down late on Friday, June 8, 2018. It is as complete an exoneration as Noakes could have hoped for.

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Apr23201823rd Apr 20181st Jul 20186Commentsby Marika

TIM NOAKES REALLY ‘ANTI-VAXX’? FAT CHANCE! PART 1

Posted in LCHF

Prof Tim Noakes. Picture: The Noakes Foundation

By Marika Sboros

When some doctors run out of science or nasty things to say about Prof Tim Noakes, they resort to a canard:

They claim that Noakes is “anti-vax”. Or “anti-vaxx” as it more commonly appears.

Anti-vaxx is a loaded, pejorative term. It should be used for anyone who, as the name suggests, opposes vaccinations for whatever reason.

Instead, critics use it as an attack term to silence anyone who even mentions the word vaccines, unless in unqualified, glowing terms. It’s pretty serious stuff for a doctor to be accused of being anti-vaxx.

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Mar19201819th Mar 201825th Oct 201835Commentsby Marika

NOAKES: WILL ACADEMIC ‘MOBSTERS’ SILENCE HIM?

Posted in LCHF, noakestrial

By Marika Sboros

How did a dietitian with a business to protect get the might of a South African state body to prosecute world-renowned scientist Prof Tim Noakes? That question is hanging in the ether.

It also raises questions around the role of academic “mobsters” in a case that legal experts say defies logic, scientific evidence and common sense.

The Health Profession’s Council of South Africa (HPCSA) has appealed its committee’s comprehensive not-guilty verdict for Noakes. The appeal concluded in Pretoria on February 23, 2018. Appeal Committee chair, advocate Justice Mogotsi, will rule before the end of March.

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Feb21201821st Feb 20184th Jul 20184Commentsby Marika

KENDRICK: HPCSA VENDETTA AGAINST NOAKES ‘DANGER TO US ALL’

Posted in LCHF, noakestrial

Scottish GP Dr Malcolm Kendrick isn’t a conspiracy theorist. Especially not when it comes to the trial of scientist Prof Tim Noakes. It would be funny were it not so deadly serious, Kendrick says. But it really isn’t funny at all. 

Kendrick says that the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) is not involved in a conspiracy against Noakes. The HPCSA is pursuing a vendetta against him for daring to promote low-carbohydrate, high-fat (LCHF) diets.

The HPCSA is appealing its own committee’s comprehensive not guilty verdict for Noakes in April 2017 on a charge of unprofessional conduct. The appeal begins in Pretoria today and runs until Friday.  

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Feb20201820th Feb 201820th Feb 201814Commentsby Marika

NOAKES: TOP DOCTORS GLOBALLY CALL ON HPCSA TO STOP PROSECUTING HIM!

Posted in LCHF, noakestrial

By Marika Sboros

Top doctors and scientists in the US, Canada and Australia have signed an open letter to the Health Professions Council of South Africa. They want the HPCSA to stop prosecuting scientist Prof Tim Noakes for allegedly tweeting “unconventional advice” that was not evidence-based. They provide evidence to show that his tweet was evidence-based and thus not unconventional.

Among the signatories is Australian cricket team physician Dr Peter Brukner. Brukner is a professor of sports science at La Trobe University.

Others include leading US, Canadian and Australian endocrinologists, obesity specialists, obstetricians and gynaecologists, oncologists, orthopaedic surgeons, anatomical pathologists, nephrologists, internal medicine specialists, anaesthetists, psychiatrists and researchers.

They have disseminated the letter as a petition. At last count there were more than 9000 signatures. (Editor’s note: the number is now above 11,000.) Many of those are doctors, other health professionals and scientists.

The HPCSA is appealing its own committee’s comprehensive not guilty verdict for Noakes. That was in April 2017 on a charge of unprofessional conduct. The appeal takes place at its Pretoria offices from February 21 to 23, 2018.

The HPCSA has objected to a request by Noakes’s lawyers to introduce new evidence. It shows that dietitians from the Association for Dietetics in South Africa (ADSA) had inside help from the HPCSA to set him up.

In a related move, South African paediatric surgeon Prof Alastair Millar has called the HPCSA’s case against Noakes ” madness and wasteful”.

“It makes one ashamed to be listed on the HPCSA register as a medical practitioner.”

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Feb19201819th Feb 201821st Feb 201823Commentsby Marika

NOAKES: HPCSA BACK ON WARPATH, BLOCKS EVIDENCE DIETITIANS SET HIM UP!

Posted in LCHF, noakestrial

By Marika Sboros

The Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) is back on the warpath against Prof Tim Noakes. It is appealing its own committee’s comprehensive not guilty verdict for Noakes in April 2017 on a charge of unprofessional conduct.

It will hold the appeal at its Pretoria offices from February 21 to 23, 2018.

The HPCSA claims that its Professional Conduct Committee “erred and misdirected themselves on the law and facts”.

It has objected to a request by Noakes’s lawyers to introduce incriminating new evidence. The evidence supports extensive evidence already on record suggesting that dietitians from the Association for Dietetics in South Africa (ADSA) really did set him up. And they had help from inside the HPCSA.

The new evidence shows up in a PAIA (Protection of Access to Information Act) request. Instructing attorney, Adam Pike, of Pike Law, made the request to ADSA in June 2017.

Noakes’s legal team has filed a cross-appeal going for costs. They say that the HPCSA went after Noakes illegally. It had no sustainable case from the outset.

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Oct11201711th Oct 201712th Dec 201842Commentsby Marika

NOAKES: ‘HPCSA WILL LOSE NEW WAR AGAINST ME!’

Posted in LCHF, noakestrial

By Marika Sboros

The Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) is back on the warpath against Prof Tim Noakes. It has also thrown down legal gauntlets to Pretoria advocate Joan Adams.

Adams chaired the HPCSA’s Professional Conduct Committee that heard the charge of unprofessional conduct. She delivered the comprehensive, 60-page, four-to-one not-guilty verdict in Cape Town on April 21, 2017. The HPCSA announced its decision to appeal in early May but only gave grounds in August.

The HPCSA effectively claims that the committee, including three medical doctors, didn’t know what they were doing. They “fundamentally misconstrued their role in evaluating the evidence”. And they “erred and misdirected themselves on the law and the facts”. The HPCSA believe there’s a “reasonable chance” their Appeal Committee will overturn the entire verdict. They don’t just want a guilty ruling. They want a whole new “rehearing”.

Noakes calls that “malicious”. He says that the HPCSA face “five rather large roadblocks in its case against him”. Those include compelling new evidence of collusion between a dietitian on the HPCSA and the dietitians who reported him.

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Jul13201713th Jul 201711th Oct 201715Commentsby Marika

Why ADSA ‘bullies’ desperately seeking to nail Noakes?

Posted in LCHF, noakestrial

By Marika Sboros

There is so much that is so bizarre about dietitians trying to bully world-famous scientist Prof Tim Noakes into silence that I hardly know where to start. Even more bizarre, say legal analysts, is the Health Professions Council of SA helping dietitians to do that.

The HPCSA tells me it is pursuing its appeal against the comprehensive not guilty verdict for him on April 21, 2017, by its own Professional Conduct Committee. It has yet to come up with grounds except to say that its legal team has identified “significant errors and misdirections in the application of the law and the evaluation of the evidence” by the majority of the committee. Committee chair Pretoria advocate Joan Adams might vigorously dispute that view.

I am co-authoring a book with Noakes on the HPCSA’s trial of Noakes.  Penguin Random House will publish it in November 2017.  In it, we look at the Association for Dietetics in SA’s ongoing war with him. We also look at why ADSA’s former president Claire Julsing Strydom and current president, Cape Town dietitian and Woolworths consultant Maryke Gallagher are still so desperate to nail him.

And we look at a question that has puzzled me throughout. How did Strydom and Gallagher get the HPCSA to do their bidding quite so easily in this strange scientific saga? I am close to the answer.

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May14201714th May 20173rd Jul 201725Commentsby Marika

NOAKES ‘ENERGISED, WRATHFUL’ AS HPCSA GOES AFTER HIM AGAIN

Posted in LCHF, noakestrial

By Marika Sboros

So, the Health Professions Council of SA (HPCSA) has appealed the not guilty verdict for Prof Tim Noakes. His lawyers are furious and up for the fight ahead. Noakes is “strangely elated”. He says that it will “allow the exposure of much about which the South African public would otherwise have remained ignorant”.

Of course, an appeal was always on the cards. The HPCSA’s legal team has the right of appeal. However, even die-hard opponents of Noakes see it as a vindictive, stupid move. It may come back to haunt the HPCSA and the lone, “horrified” dietitian who started the case against Noakes. And her organisation, the Association for Dietetics in SA (ADSA). And the many other dietitians, doctors and assorted academics involved in his prosecution.

His lawyers call the case against him a persecution. The appeal lends more credence to that. It also feeds speculation of vested interests behind the HPCSA’s failed bid to silence him on low-carb, high-fat (LCHF). The case has lasted more than three years and cost many millions of rands. If the HPCSA pursues its path, as looks likely, it could go on for years and cost millions more. Noakes’  lawyers see it as “more waste of everyone’s time and money”.

All for a single tweet in which Noakes said that good first foods for infants are LCHF.

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May0820178th May 20177th May 201717Commentsby Marika

ADSA FACES GROWING BACKLASH FOR ‘RECORD 17 LIES’ ABOUT NOAKES

Posted in LCHF, noakestrial

By Marika Sboros

The Association for Dietetics in SA (ADSA) is facing a global backlash for its role in the trial of scientist Prof Tim Noakes. The backlash has grown faster in the wake of an ambiguous statement that ADSA released after the comprehensive verdict of not guilty for Noakes on a charge of unprofessional conduct for his views on low-carb, high-fat (LCHF) foods.

American Ben Fury is one of many critics who has reacted with undisguised anger at ADSA’s statement. Along the way, he has identified “17 lies” that ADSA has told about its case against Noakes.

With so many lies in a single statement, Fury says that ADSA has set “a new record for being corporate stooges”.  He doesn’t stop there in a damning attack on ADSA’s executive, under current president Maryke Gallagher. He calls them “quislings”. Quisling is the word for a traitor, especially one who “collaborates with an enemy occupying force for personal gain”. It comes from the name of Norway’s pro-Nazi leader Vidkun Quisling during World War 2.

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May0420174th May 20174th May 20177Commentsby Marika

LIFE FOR ADSA AFTER NOAKES NOT GUILTY VERDICT?

Posted in LCHF

ADSA president Maryke Gallagher and ‘crisis manager’ Neeran Naidoo

By Marika Sboros

If defeat is best viewed as a life lesson, the Association for Dietetics in South Africa (ADSA) doesn’t seem to want to learn anything from it. ADSA lost its bid to silence Prof Tim Noakes on the science for low-carb, high-fat (LCHF). However, it is sticking to its dietary guns and South Africa’s industry-led nutrition guidelines.

ADSA President Maryke Gallagher has made it clear that ADSA will continue to dish out the low-fat, high-carb dietary advice it has always dispensed, and that the guidelines recommend.

That’s despite the Health Professions Council of SA’s  (HPCSA) comprehensive vindication of Noakes and, ultimately, the science for LCHF. The HPCSA found Noakes not guilty on 10 points of the charge of unprofessional conduct against him.

ADSA’s reputation and credibility are in free fall after its former president, Claire Julsing Strydom, set off the HPCSA hearing against Noakes. She complained about a single tweet Noakes made in February 2014. In it, he said that food first foods for infants are LCHF. by complaining about his tweet.

Critics say that ADSA’s involvement in the HPCSA’s protracted prosecution of Noakes simply his scientific views has drained it of life and turned it into a dietary dinosaur. It’s probably no surprise that ADSA has employed the services of a crisis manager, Hewers Communications CEO Neeran Naidoo, for some judicious reputation rehabilitation. ADSA released a public statement straight after the HPCSA’s not guilty verdict on April 21, 2017. Naidoo has asked Foodmed.net to run the statement in full. We have agreed. (Scroll down to see it below.)

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May0220172nd May 20174th May 201711Commentsby Marika

NOAKES VERDICT: HE WON THE BATTLE BUT THE WAR GOES ON

Posted in LCHF, noakestrial

By Marika Sboros

The ashes have settled on the unequivocal not guilty verdict for Prof Tim Noakes but what’s next? Will there be a scientific phoenix rising? Any prospect of even a breath of fresh evidential air flowing through stale halls of “conventional” dietary advice?

Not if the dietitians involved in the case against him have anything to do with it.

Immediately after the verdict on April 21, 2017, Association for Dietetics in SA (ADSA) president Maryke Gallagher was on TV. She made it clear that ADSA would not change the “conventional” (low-fat, high-carb) dietary advice it dishes out. ADSA also issued a general, highly ambiguous statement to that effect the same day.

Two days later, the Nutrition Society of SA was equally emphatic. The verdict has “absolutely no bearing or impact on the current or future status of nutrition or the dietary guidelines in South Africa”, it said.

Thus, the dietitians and their backers have sent a clear message to Noakes. He has won the battle but the war against him and low-carb, high-fat (LCHF) science goes on. However, Noakes has made it clear he is more than ready for scientific battle. In the second in a series of reviews of the verdict, here are some views on the implications of his resounding vindication.

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Apr22201722nd Apr 20178th Jul 201852Commentsby Marika

NOAKES NOT GUILTY! NO HARM PROVEN, NO LAWS BROKEN

Posted in LCHF, noakestrial

By Marika Sboros
Prof Tim Noakes is not guilty of unprofessional conduct. When Pretoria advocate Joan Adams announced the verdict yesterday, the hearing erupted into applause and cheers.

Adams said that the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) had not proved any of its case on a balance of probabilities. It had not proven any harm from his tweet or that he had breached any norms or standards of the medical profession.

Adams was Chair of the HPCSA’s Professional Conduct Committee, effectively the “judge” in this case. She said that her five-member committee had to reach a majority, not unanimous, decision. The Committee had ruled four to one in Noakes’ favour.

The ruling could not have gone more in Noakes’ favour if he had scripted it himself.

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Apr10201710th Apr 201719th Apr 201713Commentsby Marika

NOAKES TRIAL: WHO REALLY DISHES UP DANGEROUS ADVICE?

Posted in LCHF, noakestrial

By Marika Sboros

Prof Tim Noakes gave scientifically correct information in his tweet, his lawyers have argued. His statement to wean babies onto LCHF (low-carb, high-fat) is correct. Thus it is not even “unconventional”. It is also not dangerous or life-threatening, as the Health Professions Council of SA (HPCSA) claims.

Self-evidently, the HPCSA cannot prosecute Noakes successfully for a scientifically correct statement.

HPCSA lawyers are sticking to their prosecutorial guns. They claim that Noakes gave “unsolicited clinical advice” on a social network. They also claim that he gave the advice to everyone who saw it on Twitter. The advice is unconventional, dangerous and life-threatening, they say. And so is Noakes.

Noakes’ lawyers say that the HPCSA failed to prove all fundamentals of its case against Noakes. Instead of acknowledging failure, the HPCSA simply shifted the goal posts of the charge. It demonstrated a “win-at-all-costs” agenda against Noakes from the outset.

So, what’s really going down here?  In the final of a 2-Part review, Foodmed.net looks at the case so far. We also look at what the verdict will say about who really is dangerous.

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Apr10201710th Apr 201712th Apr 20178Commentsby Marika

NOAKES TRIAL: DID DISGRUNTLED DIETITIANS SET HIM UP?

Posted in LCHF, noakestrial

By Marika Sboros

 

Prof Tim Noakes had no patient on Twitter and his tweet caused no harm to anyone. So, what did two days of heated legal argument prove in the case against him?

It clearly is an “unprecedented prosecution” of a distinguished scientist, as Noakes’ legal team describes it. Even counsel for the Health Professions Council of SA (HPCSA) acknowledged Noakes as “an extraordinary South African”.

But has the HPCSA really done the unthinkable? Has it prosecuted – and persecuted – one of its most eminent health professionals on the whim of another? Certainly, few had heard of dietitian Claire Julsing Strydom before this case.

But is Strydom a malcontent, a disgruntled dietitian who went after Noakes because he disagreed with her? If not, why did the HPCSA take up her complaint that many consider frivolous? And why did it argue forcefully not just in Strydom’s corner but for all dietitians?

Why does the HPCSA believe that Noakes is wrong and Strydom is right? And that she has the right to freedom of expression but he does not?

Just as importantly, why has the HPCSA made a simple hearing over a single tweet into a full-blown trial? After all, its hearings are not supposed to be adversarial. Here’s Part 1 of a review of the case so far and what to expect next. In Part 2, we look at the verdict on who really dishes up dangerous advice. 

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Apr0520175th Apr 20178th Apr 201727Commentsby Marika

NOAKES: ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM PROVES HE’S INNOCENT?

Posted in LCHF, noakestrial

By Marika Sboros

Prof Tim Noakes is guilty of unprofessional conduct on “a balance of probability”, advocate Ajay Bhoopchand argued yesterday. He also accused Noakes of using the Health Professions Council of SA’s (HPCSA) hearing to “settle personal scores”.

Johannesburg senior counsel Michael Van der Nest argued that Noakes is not guilty of unprofessional conduct.  The only ones using the hearing to settle scores are dietitians opposed to Noakes, he said.

The dietitian who lodged the complaint against Noakes did so because he wouldn’t agree with her on diet, Van der Nest said. And when she and her colleagues couldn’t persuade him to agree with her, she decided, on a whim, to ask the HPCSA to prosecute him.

The tweet regarding LCHF for infants presented a perfect pretext for a complaint against Noakes.

Somehow, the dietitian “miraculously” succeeded in getting the HPCSA to do her bidding, Van der Nest said. Thus, the case against Noakes has become an “unprecedented prosecution” of a scientist for his views on nutrition.

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Mar28201728th Mar 20172nd Apr 201723Commentsby Marika

NOAKES AND THE WOMAN WHO HOLDS THE KEY TO HIS FATE

Posted in LCHF, noakestrial

By Marika Sboros

What’s really behind the prosecution of scientist Prof Tim Noakes? Is it just a single tweet to a breastfeeding mother, which even she said she didn’t take seriously? Was one dietitian really so “horrified” that she reported Noakes – even though she dishes out the same information?

What of claims of a doctor-patient relationship between Noakes and the stranger on Twitter? The same dietitian admitted that there wasn’t one.

Or is it just because Noakes says things like “cardiology is an evidence-free zone”? (It often is, these days.) Or that he has exposed endocrinologists who preach that diabetes is irreversible? And that he exposes the malevolent influence on nutrition advice of food and drug industries and a shadowy international Coca-Cola proxy organisation? For proof, look to crack US investigative journalist Russ Greene.

What of the Medical Research Council (MRC) investigation into  staff member Dr Ali Dhansay? Dhansay was a key witness against Noakes.  Dhansay is a former president of the Coca-Cola proxy in South Africa. Will the MRC investigation reveal foul play? The Health Professions Council of SA  (HPCSA) has turned its hearing into a full-blown trial against Noakes resumes on April 4. Here’s a preview and a look at who holds the key to Noakes’ fate.

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Dec0620166th Dec 20167th May 20179Commentsby Marika

WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF NOAKES REALLY IS FOUND INNOCENT?

Posted in LCHF

Tim NoakesBy Marika Sboros

A South African news agency has published an anonymous article about scientist Tim Noakes. The headline: What will happen to Noakes if he really is found guilty? (Emphasis theirs.)

Health24 refers, of course, to the Health Professionals Council of South Africa (HPCSA) charge of unprofessional conduct against Noakes. It states that the HPCSA will “likely not be forgotten for erroneously reporting” that it had found Noakes guilty. It speculates on six penalties Noakes would face should the HPCSA find him guilty.

I’d say it raises another question: What will happen if Noakes really is found innocent? (Emphasis mine.) I speculate on five penalty areas facing the HPCSA and all those who have helped to prosecute Noakes. Read on and tell me what you think is more likely to be the case: 

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Dec0220162nd Dec 20169th Dec 201622Commentsby Marika

NOAKES: PROOF THAT SA SCIENTISTS TRIED TO SMEAR HIM?

Posted in LCHF

Tim NoakesBy Marika Sboros

Did researchers at top South African universities make multiple mistakes in a major study deliberately? Was their aim to discredit low-carbohydrate, high-fat (LCHF) diets? And was their real target scientist Prof Tim Noakes? Or are they just human, fallible and in this case, hopelessly error-prone?

A new study in the SAMJ (South African Medical Journal) re-examines a 2014 study by University of Cape Town (UCT) and Stellenbosch University (SU) scientists. It shows that the scientists made many material errors that undermine their conclusions. It raises the question: mistake or mischief? Read on and make up your own mind.

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