BANTING diet champion Tim Noakes broke down in tears yesterday as he gave evidence at the “humiliating” Health Professions’ Council of SA inquiry into his alleged misconduct.
Noakes is accused by the Association of Dietetics of SA of unprofessional conduct for giving unconventional advice on breast-fed babies on social networks.
He advised a mother on Twitter last year to wean her child onto a low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet.
Noakes said at the misconduct hearing that he had initially believed the complaint arising from the advice to the woman on the baby’s diet was a storm in a teacup.
He maintained he had merely been giving information as a scientist on social media.
But bioethicist Willem Pienaar told the inquiry that giving advice on social media was unprofessional and could seriously harm the profession.
Noakes also told the hearing of his credentials, history and his future plans. One of his objectives, he said, was to become an acknowledged world-class expert on the low-carbohydrate, high-fat, or Banting, diet.
He said he had already spent six months collecting information for the council’s examining committee and had 6 000 pages of evidence.
Noakes said he was also an A1-rated researcher, meaning he was regarded as a leading scientist by 10 international peer reviewers.
At the hearing, Noakes also spoke of the personal toll the inquiry and the publicity around it had cost.
Later, Noakes’s wife, Marilyn, said: “I think their [the council’s] main goal is to silence him and humiliate him.”
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