Weight-loss doc Stanley Bernstein beats back ‘steering’ complaint

TORONTO – A doctor who set up dozens of weight-loss clinics across Canada has won his legal fight to block a complaint that he “steers” patients in violation of advertising rules.

In siding with Dr. Stanley Bernstein, Ontario’s Divisional Court decided against requiring a medical complaints body to review the issue.

The complaint, lodged by Toronto lawyer Peter Rosenthal, alleged that Bernstein draws people in, then passes them on to other doctors in his clinics — a practice that would breach rules against “steering.”

“This was fundamentally a complaint about Dr. Bernstein’s advertising at a particular point in time several years ago,” the doctor’s lawyer, Neil Abramson, said Thursday.

“The College of Physicians and Surgeons gave him a caution…and really the matter of steering goes far afield.”

In July 2013, a committee of Ontario’s College of Physicians and Surgeons declined to rule on the steering complaint. In making its decision, the inquiries, complaints and reports committee said there was no precedent by which to come to a judgment. Additionally, the committee noted it was already ordering a formal caution against Bernstein for making numerous unsubstantiated claims in violation of advertising rules.

Rosenthal appealed the steering-complaint decision, and the appeal and review board ordered the committee to take another look, prompting Bernstein to turn this week to Divisional Court, where he successfully argued the appeal board’s decision was unreasonable.

Rosenthal said he would not try to appeal the Divisional Court ruling.

“I will simply hope that the caution that is given will make it clear that Dr. Bernstein cannot continue to allow his name to be used at his clinics,” Rosenthal said.

Abramson said Bernstein’s clinics continue to operate.

Bernstein, who is known for his weight-loss regimen called the “Dr. Bernstein Diet,” set up 62 clinics across the country. In its earlier findings, the complaints committee warned him about using testimonials, comparatives, and superlatives in advertising.

Among other things, Bernstein claimed to have helped “hundreds of thousands of people lose millions of pounds of excess weight and keep it off for life,” something the committee and appeal board said strained credulity and was not supported by objective scientific proof.

Part of the problem, Abramson said, was that different provinces have different advertising rules for doctors and his Ontario website had become “contaminated.”

“His advertising has changed in the last period of years quite dramatically,” Abramson said.