26 Feb 2018 Tim oakes: Medical, scientific world watches as HPCSA decides his fate
South African scientist, Prof Tim Noakes, will know within 30 days if his regulatory body will fail in a last-ditch attempt to find him guilty. He will also know if it will have to pay dearly for doing so.
And this time round, global medical and scientific communities are watching.
A group of independent doctors in the US launched a petition on February 19. The US-based Nutrition Coalition has supported it. The petition calls on the Health Professions Council of South Africa to stop prosecuting Noakes.
Before a week was up, more than 31,000 of the world’s leading doctors, scientists, dietitians and others had signed.
One signatory is Harvard physician and nutrition professor Walter Willett. Willett is no fan of low-carb, high-fat (LCHF) diets. However, Willet signals his support for the right of scientists right to express opinions that differ from his.
The HPCSA has appealed its Professional Conduct Committee’s comprehensive not-guilty verdict for Noakes in April 2017. The charge was unprofessional conduct for a single tweet in 2014. In it, he said that good first foods for infant weaning are LCHF.
Noakes’s lawyers have filed a cross-appeal going for costs. Their grounds are that the HPCSA has acted in bad faith throughout. They say that the HPCSA is a statutory body and therefore the law offers it no protection against “bad behaviour”.
The appeal was held in Pretoria last week, from February 21 to 23, before a committee that the HPCSA appointed. The Committee Chair, advocate Justice Mogotsi, reserved his ruling till “some time before the end of March”….
FoodMed.net: Read the full article, outlining the arguments put forward at this appeal hearing
Related reading:
KENDRICK: ‘HPCSA VENDETTA AGAINST NOAKES IS DANGER TO US ALL’
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 isn’t funny at all. He says it’s clear that the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) is pursuing a vendetta against Noakes. And that’s for daring to promote a low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet (LCHF)….