Jackson Jambalaya

What has happened to America and Mississippi? We are not a free country any longer. Is Liberty a bad thing now? The founding fathers of this country would be appalled. Everyone should be appalled.

God forbid our Health Department hierarchy be concerned with trimming down the fattest state among 50. Meanwhile, waddle on up in any of their offices and ask to speak to any of the morbidly obese women sitting at those desks.

Good for the plaintiff and her counsel. Good for the MCPP.

If the people leading the MS GOP in the legislative and executive branches are worth anything, if they STAND for anything besides nanny-state government, they'll use this as an opportunity.

"You know, the reach of government has gotten out of hand on our watch," they should say. "That changes, starting now."

Start examining every rule that could lead to an abuse of government power like this one.

Look for laws to repeal, and rules to abolish.

Act like a conservative would.

I'm reminded of Dr. Joel Wallach. He is frequently on Coast to Coast AM and he has sone radical theories about nutrition. I'm not saying if he or his products are right or wrong. But people should be free to follow his advice if they wish.

Obama and the democrats in the federal government trying to control every part of our life...What...this is from our state government that is ran by all conservative republicans...i am sure its just a big misunderstanding...nothing to see here

"Regulatory Power"... seems unfair sometime. If the state sanctions any professional activity, or any activity at all, you cross the line at your own risk. You can make whiskey, cut hair, practice medicine, law, or dietetics until somebody reports you (usually a competitor) and you will pay. Did she cross the line? If so, what's the big deal if she has to pay?

Who is their attorney? State agencies cut back on cease and desist letters after NC Dental case. Someone didn't get the memo...

Looks to me like this is a problem that Ms. Donna and Aaron Rice should be taking up with the Legislature, not with the DOH for enforcing statutory requirements conferred upon the Department.

It may well be a case of too much "professional regulations" - something that the MJI has helped lead the fight on in Mississippi.

But until you change the rules established in the Capitol, then taking on an agency for enforcing those rules seems to be sidestepping the problem and looking for a little publicity.

It's not like Mississippi has an obesity problem.

I think we should also be able to cut hair, do nails, practice law, practice medicine, practice engineering, build houses and other building, etc. without a license. Big government needs to let people make a living.

In the stTes defense, there are graveyards filled with the bodies of those duped by passionate people: think buttock injections, dentists, etc. if she wants to consult, let here get a license. After all, it’s what we require of our engineers.

@12:17
Dr. Joel Wallace is a DVM aka a Veterinarian. He’s been selling his special form of quackery since the 1980s with his viral audio cassette “Dead Doctors Don’t Lie” which said you could live to 100 and cure from cancer buying his pills and powder.

I'm not at all convinced she violated 73-10-1, et. seq. Specifically, the following activities are excepted from that chapter:

(e) Persons licensed or registered to practice the health professions from engaging in the practice of dietetics when covered under the scope of practice of his or her profession, except that such persons may not use the title “dietitian” or “nutritionist.”

(i) Any person from furnishing general nutrition information as to the use of food, food materials or dietary supplements, nor prevent in any way the free dissemination of literature; provided, however, no such individual may call themselves a dietitian unless they are licensed under this chapter.

Miss. Code. Ann. sec. 73-10-13.

The comment at 12:56 is typical of an agency lawyer: "If you don't like it, go talk to the legislature and get them to change the law." It seems like they never consider that maybe their interpretation of the law is anything less than irrefutable.

Personally, I would have fought this at the agency level, and then on appeal after the (probably) inevitable loss before the board. Please note, I am not criticizing her attorney, who is probably just doing what he knows how to do, which is to make constitutional arguments.

There needs to be a license to create a child.

Yet any obese person that wants to can waddle up into multiple "known" clinics in rural Mississippi and let them hope you up on street legal crack, Adipex, file it on insurance, and get skinny the wrong way. This is such bullshit. Look at all the "Karens" on facbook with failed degrees that are 100lbs overweight pushing these pyramid schemes, local advocare/Herbalife tea & shake joints and work out plans got get an eye batted towards them telling people how to live their life.

I'm worried. My Mom asked me last week for meaningful information that would help her to lose weight and increase fitness befitting her advanced years. She insisted that(after she ignored my plea that I neither need nor want her money - while I giggled inside about what she thinks my time is worth). I take three quarters for doing so. I spent a couple of hours gathering a good bit of information and provided it to her with a note saying that I thought it would help.

Please help - should I have her report me to the MS Dept. of Health or should I return the money, take the documents back, and burn them?

I'm confused. There's a law. She broke the law. The state agency sent a letter that said "stop, you are breaking the law".

If the law is bad and needs to be changed, that is legislative.

Am I missing something.

There's maybe a zillion places on the internet to get diet and exercise advice including blogs, websites and podcasts and nearly all of them have premium levels that you pay a little bit for. The whole freaking fitness world is out of compliance with this rule.

Meanwhile, every registered dietitian I know works in a nursing home or an inner-city school cafeteria and I wouldn't take advice from any of them. Show me just one with a BMI under 30.

From reading the attached letter from Felecia Wang, the state health department has not one but at least 4 levels of special project officers in the Division of Professional Licensure. That in and of itself says we have a big problem at the department of health.

Eat less calories than you burn. You mean if I tell somebody that, the state is going to come get me and put me in jail?

If Tate, Delbert or Gunn don't immediately come out and condemn this government over-reach, well, go check their finance reports. I'm sure the registered dietitian association lined their pockets just like every other anti-competition association.

I hope the next time I break the law they will send me such a letter.
That is much better than being hand cuffed and thrown in jail.

Yes, 2:57, you are missing something. Read the exceptions that are written into the law that I posted above. In other words, she may not have broken the law at all.

-2:05

Hello 2:57. Please read post at 2:45. No charge for this advice.

2:57, I believe some may dispute that she broke a law. I think a judge would find the statute vague and unenforceable. I hope she fights it. Clearly there are hundreds of examples of people in the fitness industry, training industry, coaching industry who give weight loss and eating advice who are not registered dietitians.

You think the strength coach at MSU, UM or USM is a registered dietitian?

2:57 is probably a dietitian playing around on the internet while supposedly working. Probably working for the state.

Oy vey, Unknown at 2:37, so true! We MUST abide by the Food Pyramid listing fattening grains as the main source of calories instead of those nasty, testosterone producing fats and protein. Anything else is antisemitism!

2:05 --- this is 12:56 here.

I'm not an agency person of any type. In fact, never worked for any agency of the state.

And, I'm not a lawyer either.

Further, I slept in my own bed last night - not in a Holiday Inn.

My comment was based solely on my objection to the large number of professional registrations, licenses, and other bullshit that is required by the legislature to do anything from arranging flowers, to cutting hair, to nail polishing, to interior designing, etc....

Its the legislature that creates these damned laws, and the agencies are only charged with enforcing them. And it doesn't take a lawyer to see that.

So your assumption has proven the concept of the word itself.

This is the same thing that happened to the cottage food industry people, some were sent cease and desist letters, threatened with arrest and fines because they posted pictures on the internet. Cottage food law states you can’t advertise on social media and just my posting a pic is considered advertising. AG finally made a ruling clearing up the gray area and its now ok to post pictures....but this took years to get...

So if an employee of Planet Fitness tells me to quit eating fatty and fried foods, they can go to jail???

Hmmm...

The NC Dental case doesn’t apply here because the Board of Health is not made up of Registered Dietitians. That case prohibits a licensing board made up of a particular profession from stifling competition by telling others not to engage in activities that only that profession can do. It’s a stupid case but that’s what it said. So our legislature created a commission to oversee ALL professional regulations before they’re enacted to make sure they don’t have a chilling effect on competition.
Anyhoo, since Board of Health is an umbrella agency that oversees several professions, and its Board is not comprised of those professions, the Board/Department is not constrained by that case.

As a Registered Dietitian who spent 4 years earning a degree in Nutrition, an entire year in a required unpaid internship, and another year completing a Masters degree in Nutrition I agree with the Health Department’s decision to shut down her business. Registered Dietitians are required to take organic chemistry, biochemistry, microbiology, genetics, just to name a few of the many sciences necessary to learn the complexities of nutrition and its effect on the human body. Someone without this background knowledge could cause harm to the public by giving incorrect information. Just because I know how to give myself a shot or check my own blood sugar or blood pressure doesn’t make me a nurse and i wouldn’t be able to start a business offering these services without having the right credentials. This situation is no different. Registration and licensure is required to protect consumers so that “google experts” can’t tell us the next magic way to lose 50 pounds.

This is so ridiculous! What next? Is the health department gonna start trolling people for posting recipes because they aren’t a trained chef?

7:03 if they hire you to be their personal dietary consultant, then you have a problem. Otherwise you can advise all you want without legal consequences.

8:36 - the Board of Health are all "professional" health personnel who have vested interests in payment for "professionals" only.

Go back and read the Supreme Courts North Carolina Dental Board case.

9:08. You got ripped off by the higher ed establishment. Everything you know is available for free on the Internet. A real professional has experience and expertise beyond what the rest of us can learn from a book we can get on EBay. You didn’t mention anything like that.

Next they’ll be going after Dave Ramsey for giving advise contrary to what the check-cashing business lobby wants.

To 12:36/5:35,

I apparently misunderstood your comment, and apologize for any offense. To clarify, I didn't accuse you of actually being an agency lawyer, just that the point I thought you were making is typical of some of the agency lawyers I've crossed swords with in the past.

FWIW, I don't mean to impugn all agency lawyers either, just those that trend toward megalomania. I have had the pleasure of meeting some fine people who just try to do the right thing on a daily basis.

I will add that some agency-types not only take responsibility for enforcing the laws, as written, but claim the power to interpret the laws under which they operate. Agencies also promulgate regulations, i.e., create administrative law. In this manner, an administrative agency (or its attorney) may attempt to actually wield the power of all three branches of government at the same time. It happens and I don't think it's right, but I am sorry I took it out on you.

-12:05

9:08 turned Ms. Harris into the health department, no doubt

73-10-3(j): “Dietetics practice” means the integration and application of the principles derived from the sciences of nutrition, biochemistry, food, physiology, management and behavioral and social sciences to achieve and maintain people’s health...

If one understands English, dietetics practice as defined here means one would have to integrate and apply principles derived from ALL of those listed sciences, not from any random combination of the list (there is no "or" listed). Further, the state would have to prove in court that the accused used each and every one of those sciences. But we never let the wording of the law interfere with our misapplication of it.

In the other extreme, one could accuse any restaurant of dietetics practice.

@ 1:24 - "I think we should also be able to cut hair, do nails, practice law, practice medicine, practice engineering, build houses and other building, etc. without a license."

Although many of our professional licensing programs leave a lot to be desired, trust me, you really don't want to drive on that bridge.

9:30 - I'll drive on that bridge if it were designed by an engineer that graduated with the proper degrees. The fact that there is a registration/licensing group that bestows a license on the graduate is the question.

If you have a IRS tax problem and go to see a lawyer - is it the degree on the wall from NYU Masters in Taxation that gives you comfort in his ability, or the certificate awarded by the Mississippi Bar that he is licensed to practice law?

Don't know about you, but its the degree that convinces me he/she might know what to do to help resolve the IRS problem.

Same thing with that bridge issue - I would hope that the folks that hire the engineer are looking at the background, knowledge and training the designer possesses, rather than the fact that there is a license issued by the State Board of Engineering.

Look no further than the MS Bar to see how licensing helps prevent clueless atty's from practicing and giving out legal advice. Also, even when legitimate claims are made to them, why do they not act? Problably because they enjoy the fees and creating jobs they really serve no purpose.

I’m a registered dietitian, I want to consider several points regarding this case. First, we don't know what degree of information was being offered by the person providing the "nutrition advice" to others, but I’ll provide some scenarios to demonstrate just how dangerous reckless advice could be momentarily. Secondly, we don't know what the medical histories of those 70+ individuals paying the "nutrition expert" were. Finally, people do suffer poorer health outcomes (psychological or physical) or even die (whether almost immediately or possibly a slower death over years) because of poor nutrition advice being given from so-called nutrition experts. I’ve seen examples of both throughout my career. I can tell you it’s a truly humbling experience when your patient tells you their husband died years ago because of poor nutrition advice from a non-expert with respect to a medication. While someone claiming they don't offer nutrition advice to remedy any disease states may look good as a disclaimer on the outside, the chances that the "expert's" 70+ clients who were working with him/ her all had no disease states or a condition requiring medical nutrition therapy is laughable when you look at our state's health statistics.
For those who want more freedom to allow anybody to practice dietetics without the required education and training, I say why not send a person who needs physical therapy to a graphic designer; have your barber treat your cataracts; have a crack addict who is holding a sign and bottle of bleach reading “will make your teeth shine for $5” clean your teeth; or pay someone to help you lose weight even though they’ve not been properly trained to provide a personalized nutrition prescription to help you lose weight while also helping you manage your diabetes, chronic kidney disease, cirrhotic liver, gout, and bilateral lower extremity edema for which symptoms can be significantly exacerbated through inappropriate nutrition feedback. Those are just the medical conditions that need to be treated in the last example, and there’s far more information to be gathered to even begin providing an appropriate, personalized plan of care. Perhaps, in another scenario, the “expert” is hinting to some of these people that prolonged, severe caloric restriction is optimal for long-term, sustained weight loss while unknowingly planting the seeds for an eating disorder one of his/ her client’s will suffer from for the rest of their life because of the “expert’s” helpful advice. Maybe this plan does not work for the person developing an eating disorder, and they begin to develop feelings of worthlessness because some of their peers are losing weight while they are not. The client goes into a deep depression which they are un-willing to discuss with their “nutrition expert” due to embarrassment from this seeming failure and decide this was the final straw concerning their desire for continuation of life. In another example, maybe the advices from this “expert” could result in a young, newly-married woman’s inability to ovulate in the long-term because of extreme, inappropriate information she has provided, and the family the newly-married young woman once longed for will forever remain out of reach. As a final example, maybe she does not know one of her clients is on a medication that has to be coupled with certain, consistent dietary habits and inadvertently causes that client to have a stroke and die because of her poor knowledge background and inability to gather needed information. To someone’s rebuttal of the final example, you’d be surprised how many people are unaware of the medications they are currently taking. Given all the above examples, why would we not just let anyone provide nutrition expertise to the general public? I mean if they help some people and harm a few along the way, isn’t that okay, or is that a moral dilemma?

The midnight poster (12AM above)is probably not certified to prescribe sleep disorder remedies.

Trying to read that put me to sleep.

@ 10:08. I HAVE read that case. Many times. And have been to national conferences regarding same and discussed it with leading attorneys in the nation. It has been a big part of my job. The professionals on the board have to be the same profession as the profession being protected. Sorry to bust your legal bubble but I know infinitely more about NC Dental than you. Period.

12:00 AM, at this very moment, all over the WORLD, people are being made insulin-resistant, prediabetic, demented, arthritic, and blind (and having their limbs amputated), as a result of consuming the diet recommended by the powers within America's nutrition establishment. Memory care facilities and dialysis clinics are suddenly abundant, as a result of the nutritional orthodoxy pushed by the people who trained you.

So, please forgive those of us who fail to be swayed by your scare tactics. The "science" pushed, for DECADES, by your "profession" (really only one step above "Registered Fingernail Technician", or "Board-Certified Cosmetologist") is BAD SCIENCE. Your profession's history of destroying lives, would indicate that it has no right or obligation to police nutritional advice.

9:19AM March 4, Dietitians do not administer sleep studies or provide CPAP / BIPAP machine and setting rec's nor do they prescribe medications that would assist with someone's sleeping habits since it's not within our scope of practice. Therefore, you're correct, I don't know how to remedy a sleep disorder outside of providing education/ counseling that could help someone lose weight and potentially be able to discontinue usage of their sleep assistance device. :)
11:41AM March 4, Can you please point me to the countless peer-reviewed research studies that back up your claims? I've never had a patient tell me the personalized plan I provided caused them to gain weight. You assume too much about what a dietitian does. All of my patients receive personalized care plans tailored to their needs. You can continue to believe what you like but I'll end with this. If I never witnessed the overwhelming majority of my patients benefit from the education/ counseling I provided which is current and evidence-based, I would have walked away long ago due to lack of satisfaction with my work. I have a blast helping our fellow Mississippians improve their quality of life through sound, evidence-based info. Take care!

10:11 AM, rather than attempt to converse with you, which would essentially be attempting to converse with a relentlessly perky brick wall (a resilient brick wall, equipped with a loudspeaker broadcasting a loop of industry-thinktank-approved talking points), I will throw out a few names, which interested parties may opt to research, on the search engine(s) of their choice, and employing the video-sharing service(s) of their choice:

Ancel Keys; Nina Teicholz; Dr. Georgia Ede, MD; Professor Timothy David Noakes; Dr. Jason Fung, MD; Dr. Benjamin Bikman,Ph.D.; Dr. Ted Naiman, MD; and Dr. Paul Mason, MD (University of Sydney).