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Investors Business Daily, June 25, 2003 Hard copy - Issues and Insights
Feeding Frenzy
Tort Reform: Big Tobacco was just the start. Lawyers and activists now have their sights trained on Big Food, and it's not a sure thing that they would lose.
Not so long ago, few would have dreamed that restaurants or food processors would be targeted, tobacco style, by trial lawyers looking for their next big payday.
In Fact, the satirical newspaper the Onion - as a joke- ran anarticle 3 years ago announcing a $135 billion judgment against Hershey's for making Americans fat. Everyone knew it was a put-on. But that was then, in a slightly more sensible time.
In the intervening years, leaders of the tobacco attack have turned their attention to what is sometimes called (not in jest) Big Food.
A number of them got together over the weekend in a Boston event, fittingly called the First Annual Conference on Legal Approaches to the Obesity Epidemic. John Banzhaf III, a George Washington University professor and much-quoted anti-smoking activist, was a speaker. Another leader in teh tobacco wars, Northeastern University law professor Richard Daynard, was one of the conference organizers.
As news reports noted, the conference focused on finding legal strategies against the fast food and snack food industries and the tobacco analogy was a leading theme. That is, find a way to persuade juries, judges and the public that McDonalds or Kraft Foods is knowingly selling unhealthy substances that make people fat-like sugary snacks or fatty fries.
Banzhaf also brought up the addiction angle. According to the Washington Times, he cited a study published in the New Scientist suggesting that foods with fat or sugar share some similarities with addictive drugs in the way they act on the brain.
Don't snicker. The addiction argument can be quite seductive in a legal culture that tends to play down the importance of personal choices. Besides the food fighters don't have to win any big cases in court. They just need to scare highly risk-averse corporations into settling the suits for handsome sums, which amount to a new litigation tax on the food companies and of course, their customers.
Americans might not end up any thinner or healthier as a result; after all, they can still choose to eat too much. But it's a safe guess that unless limits are placed on lawsuits, perhaps such as those in a bill proposed by Rep. Ric Keller, R-FLA, lawyer's wallets will fatten.
PETA contends that the chickens KFC buys from suppliers are abused through drugging, feeding and slaughter practices.
I hear they even kill some of them.
Turns out that PETA had rented the truck from a friend of my brothers' in Maryland, and they'd provided a secured credit card good for only $200.00, which covered the rental cost but not by any stretch the fine and impoundment fees from the DC police.
The owner of the truck had to pay several $$ hundred to retrieve his dumptruck, and the perps haven't paid-up to this day.
PETA hates human beings. Like any criminal enterprise, they'll screw you over in a heartbeat to make their point.
Tried eating PETA members as a substitute- turns out they're way too tough and stringy.
Dogs wouldn't eat 'em, either.
i.e, the guy in charge of forcing the rest of America to turn vegan.