Thanks to the mod posting the article's link, it was (literally) as easy as point 'n click to email the author. I get a bit wordy, and needlessly testy, but I think I made my point, aye? BTW, my fave line was where his editor (figuratively) may have obtained his incorrect info. Pow!

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Email I sent to henican~newsday.com (as well a cc'd in a letter to their editor):

Ellis,

I was quite surprised that the nifty wordsmithing of your recent Atkins obit was torpedoed by a serious irresponsibility in not knowing the most basic couple of principles of the diet you wrote of. My evidence for this is your wildly wrong, opposite-of-what's-in-his-books statement:

"I'm like a lot of people who never went on Atkins. I'm pretty sure it can't possibly be good for you, taking no vegetables or breads or other carbohydrates. If my stomach gets a vote, that makes two of us."

Show me where the guidelines for the Atkins diet say what you misstated about veggies. If you can't, you need to own up that you obviously never even glanced at the first chapter of the book and diet you felt the ability to cover.

If you'd bothered to figuratively and literally turn the page, you'd have instead learned that many Atkins dieters actually *increase* their vegetable consumption when going on the diet (e.g. compared to their former fast-food junk food American high-sugar diet). Quite a far cry from your no-vegetable claim. Furthermore, you're also wrong in stating there are no carbs allowed. His books repeatedly explain all this in abundant detail, as well as his website and many low (not "no") carb support groups and Atkins-friendly health books. It's hard to miss unless you're pointedly not looking - which is fine if one's not planning on writing a public piece on the diet as you did.

As far as a mentioned coworker editor of yours supposedly not having a vegetable in months, he/she's not doing the Atkins Diet. Period. The Atkins Diet enjoys vegetables every day. So that's 30-60 or however many days your misguided coworker isn't doing Atkins. Maybe they got their instructions on the diet from a misguided article like yours.

And hey - I'm not asking nor expecting you to read the entire book. But wouldn't a run-through of the first chapter or two have been professional responsibility before botching your article to the public and doing them such a partial disservice (I learned of it by a couple of low-carb circles expressing disappointment at your sloppy misreporting).

Although I presume a retraction would be too much to expect, unless you truly wish to exhibit the kind of professional journalism of yesteryear that would show admirable integrity, I hope your other articles are better researched than this. I challenge you to learn the ABC's of whatever diet you chose to write about in the future.

Underwhelmed at the waste of good writing talent,

Gary

ref: Atkins: A Steady Diet of Skepticism