Francesca Villette
THE hearing into the professional conduct of sports scientist Tim Noakes was described yesterday as a game of Heroes and Villains by his legal representative, advocate Michael van der Nest.
Noakes had been called to the hearing by the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) to answer allegations of unprofessional conduct after he advised Pippa Leenstra on February 5 last year on Twitter to “wean” her baby onto a low-carbohydrate, high-fat (LCHF) diet.
Claire Julsing-Strydom, a past president of the Association for Dietetics in South Africa (ADSA), laid the complaint and testified this week that Noakes had given incorrect medical advice and his tweet was not evidence-based and could be life-threatening.
Although Noakes has not practised as a general practitioner for years, he faces losing his medical licence if found guilty of inappropriate conduct. Noakes said the reason he was going through with the hearing was to present evidence he had collated that could reverse the obesity and diabetes epidemic currently plaguing South Africa.
While being cross-examined yesterday, Julsing-Strydom was accused by Van der Nest of also responding to the tweet by advising Leenstra not to take Noakes’s advice, but to contact her instead.
Van der Nest argued that Julsing-Strydom had not met the mother or the baby and did not know the circumstances of the tweet or the relationship between Noakes and Leenstra.
“Professor Noakes has a right to free speech, just like you have the right to free speech. The case, it seems, is a game of Heroes and Villains,” Van der Nest said.
Julsing-Strydom’s reason for laying the complaint also came under fire, but she strongly denied having an ulterior motive and said her complaint was the “last straw”, after several failed attempts to get Noakes to provide evidence that mothers banting while breastfeeding was beneficial to the child.
Van der Nest questioned Julsing-Strydom about which companies sponsored ADSA at the time she had made the complaint and for which sponsors she had done work for.
Strydom said she had done work for at least one of the sponsors.
“We (dieticians) are not happy with the information being distributed to people that is not based on evidence. ADSA has had meetings with Professor Noakes to discuss and try to understand his recommendations. The tweet was the final straw. The complaint made was to stop potentially dangerous information from reaching people. Professor Noakes’s advice is not based on evidence,” Julsing-Strydom said.
The second witness was Professor Estè Vorster, former chairperson of the Nutrition Society of SA. She testified that Noakes’s tweet was inappropriate as he had not known any details about Leenstra, such as her or her baby’s weight, and neither had he considered why the mother might have asked for advice.
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