Food Libel Laws

Every information campaign, whether it is promoting a commercial brand name or a new scientific discovery, relies on legitimacy. A story of a homeless person isolating the gene that causes obesity is not likely to be considered trustworthy due to a lack of credibility, while a NASA scientist contending that there has been a meeting between the President of the United States and the Martian political movement lacks plausibility. These two cases are extreme examples of stories that are likely to be ignored by a large portion of the population due to a lack of legitimacy. There are, however, stories where the boundaries are not so clear. Some of these include efforts to defame someone or something, including campaigns meant to threaten various aspects of the food industry. The food industry has countered these attacks by backing food libel laws.

The concepts of libel and slander have a long history, though both words have become more common in everyday usage with the rise of the mass media. Slander is typically tied to spoken words (such as radio and television broadcasts), [Page 304]while libel is linked to the written word (newspapers). Both words connote a mistreatment of someone or something, typically without provocation or just cause. In U.S. courts, it is typically the plaintiff that must prove that the libelous or slanderous statement was done specifically to ruin a reputation and that there is no evidence to support such statements. This is very often difficult to do, as any evidence pointing to the slightest truth can render a libel action moot.

With regard to food and libel, negative news coverage of the growth promoter Alar in apples in 1989 moved a number of states to begin drafting libel laws that would protect their food producers and manufacturers. These laws were tested in one of the most famous cases of food libel in 1996, when Oprah Winfrey announced on her television show that she was going to stop eating hamburgers. This was prompted by a guest who warned the talk show host and her audience that mad cow disease (bovine encephalitis) could find its way into the U.S. meat supply. After the comment, a number of groups in Texas, including that state's agricultural commissioner, asked for Winfrey to be sued under the food libel laws (also known as veggie libel laws and food disparagement laws). Winfrey was sued by the Texas Cattlemen's Association but won her case in 1998. By the end of that ordeal, 13 states have passed similar laws (Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Texas), though the Arkansas State Legislature struck down a food libel bill in 1999.

The United Kingdom also has food libel laws, which were used by McDonald's to sue Greenpeace in 1990. According to Eric Schlosser, who wrote Fast Food Nation, the U.K. libel laws are much easier on the plaintiff, as it is the person or organization accused of being libelous that must prove their statements are correct, and they cannot refer to scientific findings unless they are the scientists themselves. In the McDonald's case, which came to be known as the “McLibel case,” three activists apologized for their actions, while two others decided to fight the corporation. The trial began in 1994 and ended in 1997, when the judge found that some of the information passed out by the activists did fit the definition of libel, though not all of it (which is what McDonald's had contended). The court awarded McDonald's £60,000, which was lowered to £40,000 later, though by that time the corporation had said it would not seek to collect the money.

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