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.
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