You can help Dr. Tim Noakes and maybe the whole nutritional world by signing the petition at http://bit.ly/2CHoMME

The current wrong is the vendetta against Tim Noakes in South Africa, instituted by the Health Professions Council of SA (HPCSA; doctors have to register with them to practice), and the Association for Dietetics in SA (voluntary for registered dietitians). The original stimulus was Tim’s tweet about weaning a child to a low-carb diet. While the person to whom it was tweeted did not follow the advice. (In the trial described below, it took hours of testimony to prove that it wasn’t really advice) nor did she seem to care. Nonetheless, two nutritionist took it upon themselves to get the HPCSA to accuse him of unprofessional conduct. While this predated the US President’s demonstration that Twitter should be considered random noise — Twitter has always simply been a place for shooting your mouth off and HPCSA admitted that it has no rules for doctors or other health professionals on social media. There followed a rather ugly investigation with extensive treading on due process and decency and a trial of sorts was held in which Tim was exonerated by the internal HPCSA's own internal committee four-to-one last year. The committee exonerated him extensively on all 10 aspects of the case against him. Ugly as that was, the HPCRA is now appealed its own committee's decision and a hearing just took place, but it is important to register disapproval of this lack of due process or even common decency. Tim, of course, is a person of some stature and it is undoubtedly the fact that he switched from carb-loading-before-the-race which he had previously advocated, to a low-carbohydrate diet recommendation that prompted this insanity.

It is also a matter of principle in that Tim is retired as a physician and could have renounced membership in HPCSA but took a stand against this repression. You can help Dr. Tim Noakes by signing the petition at http://bit.ly/2CHoMME

Tim has already suffered severe professional, financial and emotional harm. Going forward, this case makes the medical and nutrition professions look bad — it is really doctors (and other professionals) behaving badly. It even hurts South Africa. An appeal is simply vindictive.

Thanks for your help.

Richard David Feinman.