Money and Influence: Peter Attia’s Lawsuit against Oura Ring
The longevity doctor's deal with a fitness tracker shows the dark methods that companies use to influence science and public opinion behind the scenes.
We live in an age where the personalities of scientific influencers are more important than actual scientific results. Nothing demonstrates this more clearly than a recent lawsuit filed by the longevity doctor Peter Attia against the fitness tracker Oura Ring. On the surface the legal action seems almost mundane: Attia states that Oura owes him at least $1.3 million for several years of service promoting the device to his audience. But a strange thing happens when you file a lawsuit like this—in order to prove his case about the money he deserves Attia had to show exactly what services Oura Ring expected of him as well as how he used his position as one of America’s most respected doctors to dutifully carry out their requests.
It’s incredibly rare for top influencers to disclose the exact nature of their sponsorship deals with the public. Sure, Attia and other top scientists might list potential conflicts of interest in scientific publications and a list of sponsors on their websites—but we almost never know what the sponsors expect in return for their cash .Which is what makes this lawsuit such a bombshell.
It was a lot more than just advertising the ring on his podcasts and newsletters. Oura Ring also wanted him to press other scientists to use the fitness tracker in peer-reviewed research to increase it’s scientific bonafides at a time when multiple similar fitness trackers were jockeying for credibility. This was a surprisingly similar relationship to what Andrew Huberman appears to have had with a Whoop (a competing tracker) when he published studies featuring it in Cell Reports Medicine.
Turning journalist into de facto product advertisements is a type of conflict of interest that scientific journals never anticipated when they put together their ethical guidelines. Peer reviewed journals don’t pay their reviewers or scientists who publish in their pages because they acknowledge that doing so might influence the results of the science they report on. These sponsorship arrangements subvert that sacred relationship and flip it on its head.
If Peter Attia is the most science-forward and respected medical influencer on the internet-it stands to reason that the same basic sponsor relationships infect the work of Andrew Huberman, David Sinclair, Andy Galpin, Lex Friedman, Dave Asprey, Mark Hyman, Rangan Chatterjee, Tim Ferris, Matthew Walker and so many more.
Attia’s legal complaint outlines exactly how health influencers get paid to alter their messaging on behalf of companies and even alter the direction of scientific studies. Through the court filings I found out that he is sponsored by at least ten companies and is somehow also involved in a $200 Million "blank check company" in the Cayman Islands which does...well...who know's what?
Suffice it to say: this week’s video is important and I hope you watch it and share it widely.