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Professors Sued Over Criticisms
By Gwendolyn Bradley
Professors at the University of Illinois–Chicago and Boston University are the targets of a $240 million lawsuit filed by two osteopathic doctors who say the professors engaged in a "purposeful campaign of disparagement" that hurt their business prospects. The plaintiffs, Robert Goldman and Ronald Klatz, are the founders of both the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine , a group that develops treatments designed to "retard and optimize the human aging process," and Medical Development Management, a corporation that sells anti-aging products.
The defendants, S. Jay Olshansky of UIC and Thomas Perls of BU, have openly criticized Goldman and Klatz for making claims they say are not supported by scientific research. At a March 2004 conference in Australia , Olshansky and a commit-tee of other scientists awarded to Goldman and Klatz, in absentia, a "Silver Fleece" award for creating "the product with the most ridiculous, outrageous, scientifically unsupported or exaggerated assertions about intervening in aging or age-related diseases." In giving the award, the scientists characterized the product, an anti-aging "nutraceutical," as expensive and useless, and criticized the anti-aging academy for producing a journal which, the scientists said, lends a false impression of scientific authenticity to anti-aging products.
The lawsuit claims that the professors, who have both conducted aging research, levied their criticisms not as part of a "bona fide effort to advance public debate," but instead to advance their own business interests. The professors disagree, as do their universities, which are covering the cost of their defense.
"Professor Olshansky is doing his job to search for the truth and speak it. That's the purpose of a research university," says Bill Burton, a UIC spokesperson.
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