Vegetables are our friends
Friday, April 27th, 2007
And you’d better not forget it if you live in one of several American states that are implementing “veggie libel” or agricultural disparagement laws.
Under California’s proposed Assembly Bill 698 it will become illegal to say bad things about perishable agricultural products unless you hcan prove scientifically that your claims are true. Bills of this type introduce the same sort of rules for vegetables that currently exist for people as defamation laws.
There’s a huge amount of rubbish talked about food safety by various consumer and environmental groups and food producers claim that this can affect their incomes. The veggie libel laws got their start with the 1989 Alar scare, which suggested (once you trawled through the actual data) that people who consumed 20,000 litres or more of apple juice per day were liable to contract cancer. Apple growers claimed the affair cost them $100 million in lost sales but they lost a libel suit against CBS, who first aired the story.
Critics claim that the laws will be used to chill criticism of the food industry. In one case dairies were sued for advertising that their milk was growth hormone-free and thus implying that growth hormones are bad. The chilling effect occurs when the threat of a lawsuit prevents someone from expressing an opinion - even if they believe it to be true and have evidence to back it up - because they can’t afford to defend a lawsuit. These lawsuits (known in America as SLAPPs - “Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation”) have also caused publishers to back away from books because a book’s sales wouldn’t justify the legal costs, even if the case was won.
People behind food scares (and environmental scares more generally) can often be reckless with regard to the truth but it would be wrong to place a blanket ban on their utterings. The reputation of a vegetable should not have the same standing in law as the reputation of a person. This attempt can only be an act of professional courtesy on the part of California legislators.
The answer as usual is to have the debate in public, infuriating and tiring as that may be; to examine the evidence and then to point out in public, as P.J. O’Rourke did, that the Alar scare was not a problem with apples but with Meryl Streep’s head.
Hat tip: National Coalition Against Censorship.
