In January of this year, health and nutrition blogger Steve Cooksey received a disturbing letter from the North Carolina Board of Dietetics/Nutrition. The letter contained a 19-page markup of Cooksey's own blog, highlighting in handwritten red pen an extensive series of changes the Board demanded that Cooksey make. He had to make these changes, the Board censors told him, or he would face arrest. Specifically, the Board censors said, he had to remove or change all writing they construed as constituting nutrition advising" or "nutrition counseling" without a license. Forbes was granted exclusive first-look at a new series of internal documents, freshly leaked by outraged members within the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics [formerly the American Dietetic Association, or ADA], the professional association behind the NC State Board of Dietetics/Nutrition which censored Cooksey. In these newly-available internal documents, [the ADA]: Openly discusses creating and using state boards of dietetics/nutrition ... for the express purpose of limiting market competition for its Registered Dietitian members; [and] openly discusses a nation-wide plan of surveilling and reporting private citizens, and particularly all competitors on the market for nutrition counseling, for "harming the public" by providing nutrition information/advice/counseling without a license.
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