Comments on: Alleged Victim of Oxford Nutritionist ‘Detox Diet’ wins £810,000

By: Anne

Anne — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 14:27:22 +0000

Did you know that the lady did not listen to what the nutritionist had recommended? there is a lot more to this whole situation than the public realise. The client was recommended a normal healthy eating program, she was also recommended reasonable levels of water which was 4 pints a day, then 4-6 pints (not other fluids on top of the 6 pints!), that is not copius amounts unless drank in a short space of time. That is less than a mug of water an hr!!!! There were other factors involved in this case as their usually is, I would like to point out that there are thousands of miscarriages of justice every year where experts have got their opinions wrong!! In this case the media went straight for the jugular of the nutritionist to start more media coverage on regulation. The nutritionist was stitched over by how the judicial system operates, have you ever been caught up in a no win no fee legal situation, probably not and I hope you do not because invariably whether you are guilty or not guilty these cases are still settled out of court because of the huge costs of high court. In the meantime the lawyers make a lot of money out of this type of case!!! Perhaps intelligent people don’t judge until they know the full evidence which could not be produced because the nutritionist was told she could be sued again if she went public and explained her version of events.

By: UKRD

UKRD — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 00:09:00 +0000

I understand that Andy Burman has resigned from OfQuack. Good news for dietitians.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 09:19:00 +0000

Re comments on BDA raising their profeile – as previously staed Dietitains working in the NHS are in the position of struggling against lack of funding and understaffed departments. Many are overworked and demoralised. To ask these members of staff to work in their free time to promote a profession that they are becomong disillusioned with is a step too far.
By the way, recent contact with the BDA PR office got us this reply;
‘I think the the BDA and dieititians need to be more proactive and more creative in how we tackle the issues facing dieitians, not just from nuts. We don’t have the budgets that some of the bigger corporates have and your subscriptions alone isn’t going to pay for a large scale advertising campaigns that you propose. You give me £3000 a month and I’ll get you plastered in all the newspapers and radio – guarantteed! (That’s what the PR agencies are being paid by the supplements companies!).’
Scary thought – on top of wages rising below the inflation rate and caseloads that would beat a navvy down, we have to pay to promote our service! Unbelievable!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 18:31:00 +0000

Oh dear, I think I’m quite depressed now. What isn’t being mentioned here is that a big part of the problem is with the consumer. They don’t want to be told to eat less junk and get some exercise, they want to be told that they have an intolerance to this or that, that there’s a simply, interesting solution to their problem.

I feel a bit sorry for Andy Burman here. He’s got involved in somthing that he feels will help the situation by turning absolutely no regulation at all into at least some and is getting absolutely shredded for it. It doesn’t make it difficult to see why very few dietitians are actually willing to put their heads above the parapet.

By: blog dietitian

blog dietitian — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 16:38:00 +0000

I think Andy has made his position untenable – the membership is mad as hell.
Those of us who work in the private sector have all dealt with clients that have seen these therapists – some of the rubbish they sprout is quite unbelievable. The new council I think is a sham – and the NTs themselves do not want any more reg because they will end up halfing their income from all the supplements they sell

By: Gonzo

Gonzo — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:03:00 +0000

I see that a soon as a nutritionist makes a mistake, the knives come out for all non-dietitian advisors. What happened in this case was dreadful. But the actions of one cannot be generalised to the actions of all. That's like saying that all doctors behave like Harold Shipman! Not only that, we see that CAM does work either. Nearly all "mainlineliners" miss the point of CAM. Many CAM practitioners are approached after mainline medicine has given up on them. "mainlineliners" spout "evidence based medicine". I guess they are trained to believe that only the evidence in top journals, covered by double blind trials should be used. Nothing else has been proved to work, so it doesn't. I count myself fortunate that I stumbled upon CAM nutrition. If I had followed the advice of my doctor & RD, I probably would be deep into the side effects of T2DM by (after ~15 years). At diagnosis my BG was somewhere in the stratosphere. To be fair following the standard advice took me into reasonable regions, but I had to keep taking loads of tablets. Then by chance, I discovered a diet & regimen that took me to normal levels within a week. Astounding. So then I set about researching why and discovered that the standard min-line advice for diabetes is not based on any evidence. I looked very hard, but found only authoritative opinion. Not only that the mainline dietary advice given to everyone is based on the plate model or the USDA food pyramid. I failed to find any double blind trials proving these models. If anyone can find the evidence, I'd gladly look at it. In the meantime I'll keep my BG level and vision perfect by going my own way. I've now studied CAM nutrition for 5 years. If it is damn easy to get a qualification, why is my course so difficult? If CAM nutrition "doesn't work", why dos it work for me? Why is it so hard to dig out the evidence. (I'd never use anything that was not based on evidence) but RDs tell me it isn't evidence because its not double blind and peer reviewed. I'm not disrespectful of RDs: they do lots of things for which their specialist training is essential, but I do wish someone who really understood looked at some of the basic tenants on which their evidence is based. A cynic would say that what they are taught is designed to keep patients taking the medicine, not improve their health. It was certainly true in my case, but that's "anecdotal".
It is not the registration that is important. It is the quality of the courses. Most quality NT courses have been validated by universities – but the RDs still say that what they are taught is wrong. They believe absolutely in their evidence base, which I've found to be very elusive in certain areas, so will they believe forever CAM nutrition to be erroneous?
We need to be very clear about the difference between accurate dietary advice and the training given to those able to deliver it. On the one hand RDs say they hold the truth about nutrition and all untrained RDs are fakers and charletans. I doubt they hold the truth about nutrition, but would agree that their training is of the highest quality. Leaving aside the issue about nutritioal truth, we need to make sure that those qualified to deliver CAM nutrition receive training of an equally high standard. This can only come by having a registration body which sets the standard for and the verification of courses. This is precisely what the NTC have been trying to do since ~2002. Of course if you believe CAM nutrition is invalid, you will just see this as an endorsement of quackery. It is quite clear that neither the practitioner in this case nor the institution where she obtained her "qualification" were endorsed by the NTC.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 14:17:00 +0000

I am an RD working in Eating Disorders and I have to say that I am appalled at some of the nutrition nonsense that some Nutritional Therapists tell their patients. I get a considerable amount of EDO patients referred to me, via their GP, AFTER they have been to see an NT. When I contacted one NT with respect to a previous patient of hers (I needed to get some information on what she had covered with the patient), the NT said to me that she was relieved that I had taken over dietetic management of this patient as she (the NT) couldn’t cope! And the claptrap she had given the patient was worrying to say the least. AND this NT was on the BANT register.

I’m also very concerned at the news about Andy Burman. Maybe we should be reviewing his position as CEO of the BDA.

By: UKdietitian

UKdietitian — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:59:00 +0000

Anonymous says:

“yes however the number of deaths by quacks is still far lower than death by genius all knowing fully trained at our expense doctors”

Question – how do you know?

Answer – you don’t.
Iatrogenic death will be published via the Coroners Court findings. Woo-death?

Who knows?

No way of reporting it even if you suspect it. Takes a legal approach by the family or others to ever bring it to attention

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=136

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/328/7438/485-c

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:30:00 +0000

yes however the number of deaths by quacks is still far lower than death by genius all knowing fully trained at our expense doctors. But sadly it is so commion place it is no longer news worthy!!

At the great sadness is that as a fundamental part of our education this woman and the quack did not know some basic facts about the human body. We are all responsible as a society.

By: UKRD London

UKRD London — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 09:31:00 +0000

Harley Street Dietitian
you have a point. The BDA should be doing more – but so should the HPC, the regulatory body that ‘protects’ the use of title.

Its interesting how many woo nutritionists come up when you type the word ‘dietitian’ into a search engine -they’ve added the name for direction. They also claim to work ‘with dietitians’. In their dreams. But punters may be convinced.

Just how many sites has the HPC challenged for misleading the public? And are they publicising it to the interested public?