| Spencer Kobren: Doctors Sue In Attempt To Silence Truth For Consumers |
| Karen Marie Shelton |
| Date: 7/8/1999, 3/20/2005 |
Introduction  Six radio stations and consumer/patient advocate Spencer Kobren, author of The Bald Truth: The First Complete Guide to Preventing and Treating Hair Loss, and host of the weekly syndicated radio program "The Bald Truth," have been sued by controversial hair transplantation surgeons Gary Hitzig, M.D. and John P. Schwinning, M.D. in an attempt to stop Kobrens reporting and commentary regarding malpractice suits filed against the two physicians by upwards of 150 patients.
The patients sued Hitzig and Schwinning for malpractice that resulted in disfigurement, fraud, and misleading advertising. The public is unaware that behind the slick advertising and television infomercials are two physicians who are widely regarded as wholly inadequate by their peers and by the majority of their former patients. Through his book and radio show, Kobren has been the only pipeline of information to the public regarding the truth about hair loss treatments, including hair transplantation. This is an industry that is not so much a medical specialty as it is a cash cow that thrives on misleading potential patients, and is riddled with barely qualified physicians who perform outdated, visually unacceptable and potentially harmful procedures. In fact, only a handful of physicians performing hair transplantation do so to state-of-the-art specifications. Until Kobrens book, The Bald Truth, was published by Pocket, a division of Simon & Schuster, (April 1998), the general public had virtually no access to the truth regarding these hair transplant procedures. The only source of this type of information was in medical journals in which a couple of noted physicians (who perfected current state-of-the-art follicular hair transplantation and have been the voice and conscience of their field) called for an end to outdated, harmful procedures.
Kobren has earned vast public support for his advocacy efforts, as well as the support of visionary physicians and hair loss researchers in the scientific community, including Angela M. Christiano, Ph.D. the Columbia University geneticist who, in the fall of 1997, discovered the first gene linked to hair loss.  Dr. Christiano has written the Foreword to Kobrens second book, The Truth About Women's Hair Loss, which is scheduled to be published in the early winter of 2000 by Contemporary Books. Despite efforts to silence his reporting, Kobren continued his weekly radio program, "The Bald Truth," (WEVD-AM in New York, KIEV-AM in Los Angeles, WAXY-AM in Miami, WODI-AM in Virginia, and airs live on the internet Through Mr. Kobren's website Kobren was also invited to be a guest speaker at the annual American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicines conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, the only non-physician or non-Ph.D. to be so honored. More than 50 million men and 20 million women in the U.S. suffer from some form of hair loss. At $7 billion dollars a year, the hair loss industry takes in twice as much every year as the marketing of cold and flu remedies! |