For more than two decades, Dr. Jan McBarron has been one of the country’s most outspoken physicians in calling out traditional medicine for its reliance on prescription drugs.
Across multiple platforms, including a series of books and a nationally syndicated radio program, the Columbus weight-loss specialist has regularly expounded on how vitamins, herbs and other natural products can be just as effective in dealing with disease.
That advocacy has brought the 66-year-old physician, comfortable in front of cameras and microphones, special recognition from the nation’s largest dietary supplement lobbying group and made her a virtual rock star in the worlds of holistic and alternative medicine.
Yet what McBarron has long preached hasn’t always guided her practice.
The doctor famous for railing against the dangers of prescription drugs has built a source of income by prescribing and dispensing a potentially dangerous diet drug, an investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found. And, the AJC found, she has done it by prescribing the drug in at least some instances for people she never met.
Earlier this year, an informant contacted the AJC alleging that McBarron was prescribing and dispensing the appetite suppressant phentermine for people based solely on their answers to an online questionnaire.
To investigate the allegation, the AJC asked two people who had never been McBarron’s patients — one in Georgia and the other in a state more than 500 miles away — to fill out the patient signup form on the website for the doctor’s practice, Georgia Bariatrics. The form required that they list their height and weight and note their understanding that they would be taking medication for the sole purpose of losing weight.
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