A4M SLAPPs Two Professors

In 2004, the American Academy for Anti-Aging Medicine (A4M) filed a lawsuit against Dr. Thomas Perls of Boston University and Professor S. Jay Olshansky of University of Illinois at Chicago in an Illinois circuit court. The suit alleged that the two professors had engaged in “defamatory conduct” and interfered with A4M’s business and economic advantage. 

Examples of interfering conduct included Olshansky’s granting A4M a “silver fleece” award — a designation meant to shame medical professionals who claim they have invented ways to reverse aging. The suit also alleged that at a 2004 A4M conference, Olshansky left a bottle of vegetable oil labeled “snake oil” for the plaintiffs.

4AM alleged $120 million in damages, and Olshansky responded by filing a countersuit. In 2006, A4M agreed to drop its suit if Olshansky dropped his. 

Read more here and here.