But when Steve Cooksey - a paleo-proponent who describes himself as formerly obese, sedentary and diabetic on his blog - heard from the state of North Carolina that his advice to readers violated a law against nutrition counseling without a license, he bit back. He filed a First Amendment lawsuit.
Comment: Read more about Steve Cooksey's on going battle with the state of North Carolina's Board of Dietetics/Nutrition in the following article: Is the American Dietetic Association Manipulated by the Food Industry?
According to The New York Times:
"'Cooksey's advice,' his lawyers wrote, 'ultimately amounts to recommendations about what to buy at the grocery store - more steaks and avocados and less pasta, for example.'But that's not how the state sees it. The North Carolina Board of Dietetics/Nutrition posted a statement on its website about Cooksey, saying it had never harassed him - as some of Cooksey's supporters had claimed - and noting that its mission is to "protect the health, safety, and welfare of the citizens of North Carolina from harmful nutrition practice."
"'The First Amendment simply does not allow North Carolina to criminalize something as commonplace as advice about diet,' they added."
According to the Times, Charla M. Burill, the executive director of the board, called Cooksey in January and told him that a complaint had been filed about the advice he was dispensing. Later, she sent him papers showing specific instances in which she felt he had violated the law.
As we know from our audience, paleo diet proponents are pretty passionate. But the paleo diet has yet to be widely accepted by mainstream medical groups. Some are even arguing the meat part is all wrong, from a historical perspective.
But the lawsuit and the counseling license fight goes way beyond the usual paleo pros and cons, raising questions about when and how speech should be regulated, and how blogging might blur the line between people sharing information and the expectation of medically-sanctioned advice. We'll be watching this.
For the record, Cooksey has disclaimers posted all over his site like this one:
"I am not a doctor, dietitian nor nutritionist... in fact I have no medical training of any kind. If I can figure this out so should they."
Ahh...what a lame stunt. Dietitians have tried this in Canada and made perfect fools of themselves. Their claim of authority in such cases exceeds their regulated scope of practice to the point of obscenity. It is over-reach aka libel chill. We should all be grateful that these charlatans make such superb targets to demolish.
In Ontario, to publicly point out the absurdity of Dietitian pretentiousness, attention was quickly drawn in the media as to how this would affect the adherents of so many faiths with dietary protocols. Are we to now jail priests, ministers, rabbis, imams etc? When this his the media, the dietitians were savaged including by lawyers, regulators and legislators.
Just to rub it in, some natural health practitioners announced they would henceforth register with the state as licensed ministers of religion.