The state of North Carolina has its own “Board of Dietetics and Nutrition”–of course it does–and it has decided that one bloggers right to free speech ends where the North Carolina Board of Dietetics and Nutrition’s officious overbearingness begins, as I think Oliver Wendell Holmes (or was it Oliver Wendell Douglas?) once wrote.
Here’s the naughty bits, as reported in Carolina Journal:
[When] Steve Cooksey…was hospitalized with diabetes in February 2009, he decided to avoid the fate of his grandmother, who eventually died of the disease. He embraced the low-carb, high-protein Paleo diet, also known as the “caveman” or “hunter-gatherer” diet. The diet, he said, made him drug- and insulin-free within 30 days. By May of that year, he had lost 45 pounds and decided to start a blog about his success.
But this past January the state diatetics and nutrition board decided 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.
Unless Cooksey completely rewrites his 3-year-old blog, he could be sued by the licensing board. If he loses the lawsuit and refuses to take down the blog, he could face up to 120 days in jail.
The board’s director says Cooksey has a First Amendment right to blog about his diet, but he can’t encourage others to adopt it unless the state has certified him as a dietitian or nutritionist.
Seems he came to their attention after contradicting a local hospital’s director of diabetes services at a local meeting, and handing out cards about his site. What did the Board find objectionable about Cooksey’s site?
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