U.S. District Judge Denny Chin of Manhattan has dismissed (ruling, PDF) a lawsuit against the Atkins diet people by Jody Gorran, who says after subsisting on pastrami and cheesecake while on the high-fat, low-carb diet he saw his cholesterol spike and underwent an angioplasty. Judge Chin said the hazards of those foodstuffs were well known and that dietary advice, even when accompanied by a commercial motivation, is protected by the First Amendment. (Larry Neumeister, “NY judge finds 1st Amendment protects Atkins diet against lawsuit”, AP/Staten Island Advance, Dec. 11) (via Lattman).
Atkins diet suit dismissed
U.S. District Judge Denny Chin of Manhattan has dismissed (ruling, PDF) a lawsuit against the Atkins diet people by Jody Gorran, who says after subsisting on pastrami and cheesecake while on the high-fat, low-carb diet he saw his cholesterol spike and underwent an angioplasty. Judge Chin said the hazards of those foodstuffs were well known […]
2 Comments
The problem was that the man did not follow the Atkin’s diet. Cheesecake, even if sweetened with non-caloric sweeteners, contains too many carbohydrates. Cream cheese alone has too many carbohydrates. The man mixed high fat foods with medium carb foods and, unsurprisingly, worsened his atherosclerosis. He wouldn’t have had a valid case even if informal diet advice could be subject to liability.
not just that, the Atkins diet (which I followed myself for something like 2 years with excellent results and may start again soon) contains variety.
While heavy on meat and other proteins rather than carbohydrates (after all, they correctly assume that the human animal is in large part predatory or scavenger in nature) it says nowhere that that meat should be fatty…
Instead of dismissing the case on 1st ammendment grounds the court should have charged the claimant with starting a lawsuit under false pretenses and lies to the bench as he did not as he claimed follow the Atkins diet at all.