Originally published July 10 2005
Professor sued over anti-aging comments
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
S. Jay Olshansky has historically criticized the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine as a peddler of unscientific ideas, and the academt recently fired back with a $120 million lawsuit.
Over the years that S. Jay Olshansky has blasted the Chicago-based American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine as a peddler of baseless ideas about how to reverse the aging process, he says he always saw their dust-up as a scientific dispute like many others.
But in an unusual $120 million lawsuit now winding through Cook County Circuit Court, leaders of the anti-aging group contend the University of Illinois at Chicago professor and a colleague were aiming at much more--a "ruthless campaign" and conspiracy to discredit their work and destroy their careers.
The defamation case is an almost unheard-of attempt to punish academics for comments made in their professional capacity, said experts on libel law and academic freedom.
Although UIC is not a defendant in the suit, officials there said they are so concerned about protecting scholarly speech that the school is picking up Olshansky's legal bills.
The plaintiffs, osteopathic physicians Ronald Klatz and Robert Goldman, say the 1st Amendment's free speech protections do not cover the actions of Olshansky and co-defendant Dr. Thomas Perls of Boston University.
Klatz and Goldman blame the defendants' criticism for a series of recent professional setbacks, including cancellation of an anti-aging conference to have been held this month in Singapore, and termination of a contract to develop anti-aging products that could have been worth $20 million.
Their attorney, Sigmund Wissner-Gross, argues in their suit that Olshansky and his colleagues crossed the line in March 2004 by giving a mock "Silver Fleece" award to products developed by Klatz and Goldman.
Beyond the defamation claim, the suit contends that Olshansky went out of his way to derail a lucrative contract Klatz and Goldman had with Market America Inc., which makes the products that received the Silver Fleece award.
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