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Monday, December 11, 2006

Trifling Lawsuit Against Atkins Dismissed, Judge Says Diet 'Protected By The First Amendment'

The sue-happy, anti-Atkins drivel of Jody Gorran is finally over.

Nearly two years after he filed a lawsuit against Atkins Nutritionals, Inc. claiming the low-carb diet made popular by the late Dr. Robert C. Atkins has caused him to develop heart disease and led to a rapid decline in his health, this Business Week column reports that the opportunist Florida real estate mogul has had his ridiculous case against the company dismissed by a federal judge on Monday.

Well it's about time!

U.S. District Judge Denny Chin said Gorran's preposterous claims that his health was endangered when his cholesterol went up and he experienced severe chest pain that led to an angioplasty were not the fault of Atkins Nutritionals, Inc., the business arm of the Atkins diet, because the Atkins book he read was not an advertisement for any specific products.

Instead, the concepts discussed in the book Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution, Judge Chin contended, were merely intended to be a lifestyle guide for people desiring to lose weight and get healthy via livin' la vida low-carb, not to market and promote the Atkins Nutritionals product line. The law is very clear about this, the judge added.

"It is well settled that the mere fact that there is an underlying economic motivation in one's activity does not turn that activity into commercial speech," Chin explained.

However, the judge was rather matter-of-fact in his opinion about what people need to do to lose weight.

"Run more, eat less," he told Gorran.

Gorran, who I first personally encountered at my blog in June 2005, and his cronies were hoping to have the court order Atkins Nutritionals to put warning labels on their products to protect other consumers, but the judge wasn't going to have anything to do with such a ridiculous request that had no merit.

Interestingly, Judge Chin read both the 1999 and 2002 version of the Atkins books (something the enemies of the Atkins diet NEVER do!) and concluded that Dr. Atkins put adequate enough warnings in the book for the one-third of the population who are described as "fat-sensitive" while following the program. The judge concluded that Gorran's lawsuit was frivolous since there was nothing inherently wrong with either the books or the food products that would make Atkins Nutritionals liable for any damages under the law.

More than anything else, Judge Chin said Gorran willingly took the advice he received from the Atkins book and decided on his own to begin the low-carb diet plan. As such, the U.S. Constitution protects the Atkins book as free speech since Gorran was not forced to follow the diet after reading the book. He chose to do it under his own free will.

"The concepts may be controversial and the subject of criticism, but they are protected by the First Amendment," Chin contended.

Not surprisingly, Gorran and his PETA-loving pals at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine are throwing a nice little temper tantrum right about now and plan to appeal the judge's decision after being "very disappointed" by this "real blow."

WAH, WAH, freakin' WAH! You LOST and the gig is up now. No more free media exposure for your stupid little lawsuit that was only meant to hurt a good company and an honorable man who has done more to promote health and vitality than anyone at PETA ever has.

Jody Gorran should be locked up in solitary confinement for the rest of his life because of this despicable act of wickedness these past couple of years against the innocent victims of his anti-meat, radical vegan personal attacks, especially when he made such widely publicized criticisms of the Atkins diet claiming it "could kill you," among other things.

What a miserable excuse for a human being this Jody Gorran is. The emotional distress that he placed on people like Mrs. Veronica Atkins and all those faithful employees at Atkins Nutritionals who lost their job when the company filed for bankruptcy in 2005 is unforgivable. Any of the alleged pain that the Atkins diet inflicted on him has now been returned 10,000-fold back on the very people who vigilantly labored to share the hope and inspiration that the low-carb lifestyle has to offer people.

I for one am glad to see this debacle coming to an end at last. Jody Gorran has had his limelight, his day in the sun to walk around smugly with his accusations, and now has tasted the humbling defeat he has deserved from the beginning. It's time to move on with your life now, Mr. Gorran, and just stop with all these silly, time-consuming lawsuits because there are bigger things to worry about in this world than those of us who make low-carb our chosen way of eating.

We are better because of it, too, because we refused to listen to such arrogant knuckleheads as you. Perhaps now that your lawsuit has been dismissed there will be people who will be willing to give low-carb living a fighting chance to help them overcome their obesity, diabetes, and other such health ailments that they struggle to beat. For all those people who believed Gorran and now know he was dead wrong, I say WELCOME. It's time to start livin' la vida low-carb...at last!

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3 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

He knew he wouldn't win. He couldn't smear Atkins with science so he brought the lawsuit to smear him in another way. It's all about publicity and nothing else.

And good on the judge for reading the books!

12/12/2006 1:25 AM  
Blogger PJ said...

So let me get this straight. A member of PETA files lawsuit against the People Eating Tasty Animals alternative (LOL) -- lowcarb -- and we're supposed to believe ANYTHING but politics, media, and attempt to do harm to the biggest meat-eating movement of the modern age, is really behind this?

Given the number of people whose blood readings radically improve on lowcarb, perhaps he is fat-sensitive -- but perhaps he'd have had problems anyway. I don't know the details. Maybe his readings even got better but not fast enough to save him. Or maybe his food choices for LC were sheer fat, who knows? But talk about a laughable ploy!

Most people I know have done "low-cal low-fat" diets and worsened blood readings and felt horrible and lost almost nothing but muscle for the most part -- it is not like we are suing every doctor who ever suggested it. Sheesh.

12/12/2006 1:28 PM  
Blogger Science4u1959 said...

Of course he knew he wouldn't win, and of course he never followed a truly low-carb dietary regimen. And I doubt even more if indeed this petty little creep ever developmed any detrimental side-effects from the Atkins diet. In the media it was reported that the idiot consumed cheesecake, for Pete sakes! Indeed the details are not known (for obvious reasons, most likely) but in my view it's almost 100% certain that his diet had nothing to do with low-carb or Atkins for that matter.

These people -including his cronies at PETA and/or PCRM- will simply do, say, imply or lie about anything to get media attention, as they are very well aware that the media is exclusively focused on negatives. Good news is never published, after all. Nor is the truth: the media is simply not interested in the truth.

I am afraid we have not heard the last of him or those "wonderful" organizations.

Unfortunately, science progresses "funeral by funderal" - meaning that only when those that vehemently -but unfoundedly- oppose a certain theorem die of old age (or in this case, more accurately, their low-fat diet), the new ideas get attention and are accepted.

The same goes for those that are constantly attacking low-carb and anything connected to the consumption of meats - although these are the most nutrient dense and healthy foods known to man. They will never acknowledge the real, hard scientific facts. They will continue to smear, lie, twist and turn and distort the facts until their last breath, and even invent their own pseudo-scientific "facts" (Ornish, anyone?) to support their dietary delusions and politically correct ideas.

Sad, yes, stupid, yes, but such are the ways of this world...

12/13/2006 2:29 AM  

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