UA-9726592-1

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Elisabeth Hasselbeck Sued For Plagiarism and panned over G-Free Diet Book

BOSTON — Elisabeth Hasselbeck, a co-host of ABC's "The View," is being sued for plagiarism.

A lawsuit in federal court in Massachusetts alleges that Hasselbeck plagiarized content from a book on celiac disease written by a self-published author.

Author Susan Hassett filed the lawsuit Monday, saying she sent Hasselbeck a copy of her book, Living With Celiac Disease, book after the “The View” celebrity disclosed she had celiac's. Hasset's book got an excellent review on Amazon.com

Hasselbeck's book, The G-Free Diet: A Gluten-Free Survival Guide, was recently posted on several best-seller lists.

To make matters worse, The Celiac Foundation said Hasselbeck's Book is "Inaccurate" and "Dangerous.” Elaine Monarch, the Executive Director of the Celiac Foundation released the following statement on the Hasselbeck book:

I am writing to call your attention to the current publicity surrounding the new book, The G-free Diet, A Gluten-Free Survival Guide, by Elisabeth Hasselbeck, co-host of The View. While it is important to call attention to celiac disease, the information must be accurate - the inaccuracies in this book are potentially dangerous and detrimental to celiacs and to those yet to be diagnosed if people self diagnose and start eating GF. Our mission is to assist in getting people accurately diagnosed and the message in this book could defeat this mission. It appears that this book is being marketed as a fitness diet - eat g-free and feel so much better. Celiac is incorrectly referred to as an allergy not an autoimmune disease.

The GF diet is the medically mediated prescription that controls the condition for a diagnosed celiac. Several items in the book are misleading and inaccurate and place further limitations on the GF diet. The gluten-free lifestyle is a lifelong commitment for the diagnosed celiac, not an option, not a fad diet - adhering to the GF lifestyle requires patience and persistence. This lifestyle can not be trivialized.

The lawsuit says Hasselbeck's book "includes dozens of paraphrased as well as word for word stolen phrases" from Hassett's book. The lawsuit also alleges the books have a similar organization.

Hasselbeck said in a statement that the allegations are baseless and she worked "diligently and tirelessly" on the book and was disappointed by efforts to discredit her work.

www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/23/elisabeth-hasselbeck-sued_n_219624.html

celiacdisease.about.com/b/2009/05/06/an-open-letter-from-the-executive-director-of-the-celiac-disease-foundation.htm

Get 30 days of free traffic analysis simply by going to Web-Stat: http://www.web-stat.com/?id=2955

Contact Rightardia: eelder1@gmail.com

No comments: