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North Carolina Threatens To Shut Down Nutrition Blogger
vvaduva writes "The North Carolina Board of Dietetics/Nutrition is threatening to send a blogger to jail for recounting publicly his battle against diabetes and encouraging others to follow his lifestyle... the state diatetics and nutrition board decided [Steve] 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." If applied consistently, I think this would also clear out considerable space from the average bookstore's health section. (And it could be worse; he could have been offering manicures.)
I guess this means I should stop reading the ingredients in my food and trying to eat healthy and balanced. Don't want to be jailed for "practicing nutrition"
FTFA:
"After the meeting he handed out a couple of business cards pointing people to his website.
Three days later, he got a call from the director of the nutrition board."
once you go into the real world and hand out business cards you are operating a business, it's no longer free speech. Title is misleading.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Lets bring this sort of thing to all the people that are effectively practicing medicine without a license.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I guess this means I should stop reading the ingredients in my food and trying to eat healthy and balanced. Don't want to be jailed for "practicing nutrition"
He makes money on ad revenue for this advice. And also from the article:
McCullagh said the board may be on more solid ground in its complaint about the telephone support packages Cooksey offers. “But if customers are paying $97 or $149 or $197 a month to have someone listen, that sounds a lot like life coaching, which doesn't require a license.”
So I think the board is trying to do Crooksey a favor because here's what's going to happen. Someone is going to die after telling their family members that they've stopped seeing a regular doctor and went holistic with Crooksey when they should have had their ankle amputated. The family is going to sue Crooksey probably with a number of things like practicing nutrition without a license, etc etc. And since Crooksey is making money off this operation it's going to be hard to tell the court that was just friendly advice over tea. Crooksey isn't going to have malpractice insurance and his first amendment rights aren't going to protect him from the lawsuits that follow regarding the repercussions of his preachings.
Crooksey should be able to say whatever he wants and put it on his blog. That doesn't mean he shouldn't be held accountable for what he says. It's wrong for the board to try and shut him down now but if I were them I would just kindly let Crooksey know that the things he is saying might leaving him with serious liabilities in due time.
My work here is dung.
A nutrition blog
Is a horrible slog.
Go straight razor smooth,
Get some barbecued hog!
Burma Shave
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
They call a FAQ a 'assessing and counseling readers' because it answers questions. From the article:
Where it crosses the line, Burill said, is when a blogger “advertises himself as an expert” and “takes information from someone such that he’s performing some sort of assessment and then giving it back with some sort of plan or diet.”
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, 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 idea that only licensed people can discuss a subject that everyone is familiar with is like the freak flip-side to 'teach the controversy'; instead of forcing people to disseminate wrong information, they've decided that only government licensed counselors speak the truth.
tomorrow who's gonna fuss
Reading the comments here decrying the fact that an unlicensed person would write about nutrition is maddening.
These license requirements are written by the same government that brought us the DMCA, the Patriot Act, and narrowly missed on SOPA. Also Vioxx, and school sponsored sugar bomb school lunches, with some whole grain. And apprently USDA inspections of student's brought lunches. It's the same. It's the same people, same motivations, same corruption, same everything.
We know the MPAA and RIAA are self serving corps who will destroy anything and anyone to perserve their power and make another dollar. Everyone here knows that. But apparently we don't know enough about organizations like the AMA to realize that they are the same.
They are out to protect the consumer or patient in the same way the MPAA is out to protect movie viewers. It's the same.
During 2011 I was able to attend many health related conferences around the country in addition to the NAMA, National Automatic Merchandising Association (aka Vending Machines) conference. While at the NAMA it is no surprise I was surrounded by Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Kraft, Mars and a host of other related companies that make food like products. It was also of no surprise that most of the people were over weight and looked unhealthy.
Then I got to attend the Ancestral Health Symposium. Major difference, people were talking about eating food our ancestors would have eaten and getting back to the basics. Reducing our sugar intake, lower our consumption of processed foods and getting more information about what we are really putting in our bodies. Some people were overweight, but the majority of people there looked like they cared about their overall health.
Last I got to attend the ADA conference. This is a huge conference in San Diego where all the Dietitians go to get some of their continuing education credits and current health information. Who was there?!? Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Kraft, Mars and a host of other related companies that make food like products. It was so sad for me to see. So much became clear to me over the course of that weekend.
I would much rather give my money to Steve Cooksey for his advise, or to support his legal fees, than to most of the Dietitians I met at the ADA.
NAMA: http://www.vending.org/
Ancestral Health Symposium: http://ancestryfoundation.org/
American Dietetic Association: http://www.eatright.org/