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HomeMedico-LegalNoakes cannot be punished for 'unconventional' advice – Defence counsel

Noakes cannot be punished for 'unconventional' advice – Defence counsel

MedicoNoakes
Tim Noakes

Professor Tim Noakes cannot be prosecuted for offering unconventional advice, his lawyer Michael Van der Nest says as the Banting guru's misconduct hearing starts wrapping up. 'If they wanted to charge Professor Noakes with dangerous advice, they should have done so,' he says in a News24 report.

The Health Professions Council of SA (HPCSA) was hearing final argument in the protracted hearing into a complaint by the former president of the Association for Dietetics in South Africa, Claire Julsing-Strydom.

She had complained about Noakes giving advice relating to his Low Carbohydrate High Fat (LCHF) diet on Twitter to a mother.

The mother's tweet read, "@ProfTimNoakes @SalCreed is LCHF eating ok for breastfeeding mums? Worried about all the dairy + cauliflower = wind for babies?? [sic]"

Noakes advised her to wean her child onto LCHF foods, which he described as "real" foods. His tweet read, "Baby doesn't eat the dairy and cauliflower. Just very healthy high-fat breast milk. Key is to ween [sic] baby onto LCHF."

A long Twitter debate ensued, in which dietitians jumped in to the fray, also offering advice, said Van der Nest, but none of them are facing a complaint.

Julsing-Strydom's complaint said, “I would like to file a report against Prof Tim Noakes. He is giving incorrect medical (medical nutrition therapy) on twitter that is not evidence based.

"I have attached the tweet where Prof Noakes advices [sic] a breastfeeding mother to wean her baby onto a low carbohydrate high fat diet. I urge the HPCSA to please take urgent action against this type of misconduct as Prof Noakes is a “celebrity” in South Africa and the public does not have the knowledge to understand that the information that he is advocating is not evidence based – it especially dangerous to give this advice for infants and can potentially be life threatening. I await your response”.

Van der Nest said that the complaint was unusual because usually the HPCSA is faced with an injured person, but in this case there was not a shred of evidence to show that anybody had been harmed.

And, Noakes in no way had a doctor/patient relationship with Leenstra, and was not giving her medical advice, he continued.

He said there are also no norms and standards relating to giving medical advice on social media and if there were, it would be difficult to do so because of the very public nature of the medium.

If the HPCSA found against Noakes' comments on Twitter, then writers of diet books would be equally liable towards the people who buy their book.

Earlier, the HPCSA's counsel said in summing up that Professor Tim Noakes should never have given medical nutritional advice to a mother nursing a newborn baby because he is neither a paediatrician nor a dietician, reports

In addition, his advice in a 2014 tweet went against global convention, because at the time of the tweet there was no known LCHF diet for infants. Babies diffee from adults

Advocate Ajay Bhoopchand, in final argument against Noakes, submitted that the LCHF diet is aimed at being of benefit to adults with ailments such as diabetes type 2, metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance and obesity.

But it was not for babies who, conventional knowledge dictates, should be breastfed.

"Dietary recommendations during that period is different from that of an adult," Bhoopchand argued.

"Does it make any sense to try and recommend a diet that is geared towards a reduction of weight, like the LCHF?" he asked.

Bhoopchand said that Noakes had since distanced himself from a carbohydrate-free diet and changed his own advice in his book on children's nutrition, Raising Superheroes, in which he says a measure of leniency regarding carbohydrates for children is fine.

He said the LCHF diet is ketogenic, which means the body goes into starvation mode, and this is problematic for babies whose brains are forming.

"He is not an expert in this field… and he certainly doesn't have any training in this field," said Bhoopchand.

He added that the LCHF diet "finds no favour" with the World Health Organisation, or the United Nations International Children's Fund.

Bhoopchand noted that the Noakes Foundation now has a paediatrician who is registered with the HPCSA and the Association of Dietetics of SA.

[link url="http://www.health24.com/Diet-and-nutrition/Healthy-diets/noakes-being-charged-for-having-different-view-lawyer-20170404"]Full Noakes item:[/link]

[link url="http://www.health24.com/Diet-and-nutrition/Healthy-diets/noakes-should-not-have-given-banting-for-babies-advice-hpcsa-20170404"]HPCSA summing up[/link]

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