Category: legislation

The Cal­i­for­nia State Sen­ate is con­sid­er­ing leg­is­la­tion to require doc­tors to learn about nutri­tion if they want to keep their license to prac­tice med­i­cine. Yes, state leg­is­la­tures can do that! Here’s the text of SB 380. If you live in Cal­i­for­nia, ask your state sen­a­tor to sup­port it. If you don’t live in Cal­i­for­nia but have friends in Cal­i­for­nia, ask them to ask their state sen­a­tor to sup­port it.

In a hear­ing about this leg­is­la­tion, John McDougall, MD, said,

The joke is that a doc­tor and his sec­re­tary know the same about nutri­tion unless she is on a diet, in which case she knows more. … If you cor­rect what’s mak­ing peo­ple sick, they get well.

The Cal­i­for­nia Med­ical Asso­ci­a­tion oppos­es the mea­sure. Of course they do. Their rep­re­sen­ta­tive sug­gest­ed that oph­thal­mol­o­gists and ortho­pe­dic sur­geons don’t need to get this train­ing. She’s some­how ignor­ing the fact that our major caus­es of new cas­es of blind­ness and vision loss are dia­betes, mac­u­lar degen­er­a­tion, and cataracts, all of which are strong­ly linked to diet. Oph­thal­mol­o­gists should know this. The joint dis­eases that cause peo­ple to end up get­ting a knee replace­ment are large­ly dietary. Ortho­pe­dic sur­geons should know this. The CMA hasn’t made sure that they learn it. The state gov­ern­ment can demand that doc­tors learn it if they want to keep their license.

It would be in the best inter­est of the peo­ple of Cal­i­for­nia for their doc­tors to get prop­er train­ing in nutri­tion. There­fore, the Cal­i­for­nia leg­is­la­ture should use its pow­er to reg­u­late the med­ical pro­fes­sion to insist that doc­tors get this train­ing. That’s why the state gov­ern­ments were giv­en the pow­er to reg­u­late the med­ical pro­fes­sion to begin with!

Watch the tes­ti­mo­ny here.

Pho­to by JasonD­Great