World Nutrition Summit 2026: 16 October 2026 (15:30 – 16:45)
Some doctors are punished not for harming patients, but for trying to save them.
Dr Jackie Stone was one of them.
On Day 3 of the World Nutrition Summit (14-16 October 2026), under the theme Questioning the Science, Prof Noakes delivers the second Jackie Stone Memorial Lecture. It is both a tribute and a message of hope to every health professional currently being persecuted or bullied for asking an inconvenient question.
Who was Dr Jackie Stone?
Dr Jacqueline Carey Stone (1965–2024) was a family physician in Harare, Zimbabwe, who graduated cum laude with her MBChB and went on to specialise in holistic and integrative medicine.
When COVID-19 reached Zimbabwe, she did what a physician does: she treated the patients in front of her with the tools she had, in a country where the tools were few and the waiting was fatal. Thousands of Zimbabweans, from taxi drivers to cabinet ministers, credit her with their survival. Her phone never stopped. She never turned anyone away.
For this, she was investigated, disciplined, and stripped of her ability to practise. The regulatory machinery that exists to protect patients was turned against the doctor those patients trusted most.
Dr Stone took her own life on 3 October 2024.
She was not discredited by evidence. She was destroyed by process. And much of what she argued for — the right of a clinician to treat, to observe, to publish, and to dissent — are still relevant today.
Why Prof Noakes
Prof Tim Noakes knows the inside of a disciplinary hearing.
He spent more than four years defending a single tweet before the Health Professions Council of South Africa. He was found not guilty in April 2017, and the HPCSA’s own appeal committee upheld that verdict in June 2018 — a comprehensive rejection of the case against him.
He survived. Jackie did not.
That difference is the reason this lecture exists.
The Lecture
Questioning the science is not misconduct. It is the method.
Prof Noakes will speak on the cost of scientific dissent and provide hope to those practitioners being bullied and persecuted.
Following his lecture a panel discussion will follow between Prof Tim Noakes, Dr Herman Edeling and Prof Colleen Aldous.
Details
- Date: Friday, 16 October 2026
- Time: 15:30 – 16:45 (SAST)
- Venue: Hazendal Wine Estate, Stellenbosch, Cape Town
- Occasion: World Nutrition Summit 2026 (Day 3: Questioning the Science)
Cost for SAVIMS members
- In person — R1,800 (only for SAVIMS members) – Includes full Day 3 conference access
- Virtual — free (The livestream Zoom link will be shared on the morning of the lecture)
Register
SAVIMS members who want to attend the lecture – either virtual or in-person – must register by 9 October 2026 by completing a Google Form. If you are attending in person, we will send you the payment information later.