Why Doctors Should Never Dispense Dietary Advice

An Australian physician named Gary Fettke has been muzzled for life by the Australian Health Practitioners Regulatory Authority (AHPRA) from dishing out dietary advice to his patients and could forfeit his right to practice medicine if he disobeys.

The Loquacious Lowcarbivore must go out on a limb to agree with this distinguished group.

Just think of the financial disaster to the pharmaceutical and medical device industries if people with diabetes no longer had to take medications, obsessively monitor glucose levels or purchase artificial legs.

As an orthopedic surgeon, Fettke recommended a low carb healthy fat diet to his patients putting all sorts of moneyed interests in peril.

Telling people with diabetes to avoid sugary breakfast cereals and other highly processed foods would take a big bite out of the profits of special interests like Nestlé, Campbells and the Australian Breakfast Cereal Manufacturers Forum, all of which partner with the Dietitians Association of Australia (DAA) -- the financially threatened dietitians group that lodged an anonymous complaint against Fettke two years ago.

Shunning sugar would cause a global economic meltdown, the likes of which we have never seen. Or, at the very least, put a bunch of bought-and-paid-for dietitians out of business.

On a more serious note, the malicious absurdity of what just happened to a good man like Dr. Fettke sends shivers up the Loquacious Lowcarbivore's spine. Not only has he been forbidden from dishing out dietary advice to his patients FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE, but he would also be restricted from discussing nutrition were he to obtain a nutrition degree that would ostensibly qualify him to do so.

Does AHPRA stand for A Herd of Patently Ridiculous Autocrats? Is it legal and ethical for a regulatory body to hold a doctor's license ransom by dictating which doctors can and cannot dispense dietary advice?

“If I’ve got a patient whose got unstable diabetes in hospital, with an out of control infection, and their blood sugars are all over the place, and they’ve got a can of soft drink in front of them, theoretically, I’m not allowed to advise them not to have that,” Fettke recently told the host of the Tasmania Talks podcast.

Even Kafka could not have imagined this degree of bureaucratic absurdity.

Sign the petition to overturn AHPRA's decision to silence Dr. Gary Fettke:

— Nancy Tracy (@Diet_Skeptic) November 19, 2016