‘Veggie libel’ laws legal disaster

Consumer advocates have been sounding the alarm for years that corporations have too much power over the markets in which they operate. Nowadays, the more chilling statements may be the ones they don't make.

Thirteen states have so-called "veggie libel" laws on their books, at the behest of major food and chemical corporations. These states are Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Texas.

These laws establish a lower standard of damage to prove libel when the subject of the statement is food. In plain speech, these laws make it easier for a food producer to win a case against anyone who makes a comment about their product unless it is scientifically verifiable beyond the shadow of a doubt. In most states, the law allows for civil suit, but in Colorado, this kind of speech is actually criminal.

The effect this has on any legitimate research or reporting is positively numbing.

Since these laws took effect, it is extremely easy for any company to sue someone for expressing an opinion about any food product in these states.

 Therefore, the defendant is required to prove that his or her statement, which could be as innocuous as "I think this bagged spinach made me sick," is solidly backed by reliable science, instead of being constitutionally protected speech expressing an opinion.

Media experts explain the danger in this condition, called the chilling effect. Journalists, doctors and consumer advocates are likely to self-censor exposing these situations, for fear of costly lawsuit. Even if they win the legal battle, they're likely to go bankrupt in the process, which is what the companies that bring the suits want.

"If I'm a small-town newspaper, I'm likely not to publish [these stories] because I can't afford to be sued," says Larry Burriss, journalism professor at MTSU.

 Imagine who may get to decide which evidence is scientifically sound. A vast majority of the research done about modern corporate food is conducted by the companies themselves, which tend not to release their research, especially when it shows them in a bad light. This constitutes a catch-22, in which the research justifying a critical remark is kept secret for the very same reason.

Think of those oft-cited tobacco company studies that proved the arguments of the accusers and were therefore kept secret, such as the study that proved that secondhand smoke caused cancer.

The dearth of food health research is an important related topic. Public university agriculture schools are supposed to conduct the kind of research and fact checking required to keep private companies in line. However, these companies overwhelmingly fund this research at the schools, effectively outsourcing their work to government entities and silencing any criticism. Why would a university publish research critical of its donors? It could even get sued for doing so in these states.

Veggie libel came about after a 1989 episode of CBS' "60 Minutes" aired concerns that a plant-growth-regulating chemical, Alar, was likely carcinogenic. Public outcry caused large retailers to reject apples treated with the chemical, and the apple growers sued CBS for what they argued was a loss of profits and defamation.

Of course, it turned out that Alar was carcinogenic in both mice and men, but that didn't stop the companies from crying bloody murder. The suit against CBS was a traditional libel suit; under the law, the growers would have to prove that CBS knowingly published false information with intent to defame. Of course, they could not, since CBS had science on their side, and the case was dismissed in 1994. Enter special treatment for giant companies.

Starting in 1995, several states quickly adopted laws holding the speaker civilly liable for saying that any "perishable food product or commodity" was unfit for human consumption.

Consider, then, the following hypothetical situation. Suppose a company makes a chemical which kills all plants on contact. The same company produces some bean varieties genetically engineered to be immune to the killer chemical. Therefore, farmers can nuke their fields with the plant-killer, keeping them free of weeds for their beans to grow. Now, suppose this same company manufactured the infamous Agent Orange.

The kicker: it's very risky in 13 states to criticize this very condition. To reiterate, it leaves one open to frivolous lawsuit to express an opinion unfavorable towards this practice, or the company that facilitates it. If a farmer were to advertise that his beans were superior because he didn't use the killer chemical or the magic beans, he could be sued for millions of dollars. He'd be sued, and he'd probably win, but go bankrupt in the process. By the way, the chemical is called RoundUp, and the company is called Monsanto.

Somehow, the First Amendment does not apply when the subject of one's opinion is a food product in 13 states.  No one, however, is immune to this litigious bloodlust.

In 1998, Oprah Winfrey was sued for $12 million by a group of Texas cattlemen, after a former rancher said on her show that the U.S. was in danger of a Mad Cow disease outbreak. He claimed that at some ranches, dead cattle were fed to the herd. Oprah responded "It has just stopped me cold from eating another burger." The lawsuit took four years to end in her favor. However, the Supreme Court, which has the power to put the issue to bed once and for all, declined to hear the cattlemen's appeal. Do food producers deserve special protection from otherwise legal criticism?

The point of these lawsuits is not to win money from high-profile defendants such as Oprah. The point is to stifle debate about practices that may be extremely harmful to our health and environment. Remember, Alar turned out to be cancerous, as did Agent Orange, but that doesn't mean anyone wanted to admit it.