Meat + Poultry - April 2006 - 9

Commentary

Attention getters
In an era when food is celebrated
throughout most of our culture, it is
amazing how cases continue to surface where fingers are pointed (or in
the case of Wendy's, planted) to make
the food industry out to be the primary
vector for society's ills. In the past, the
fast-food industry was targeted. Books
were written ("Fast Food Nation"),
lawsuits were filed (McDonald's spilled
coffee) and movies were made ("Super
Size Me") to pull back the curtain on
what many want to believe is an evil
empire. More recently, officials with
Kalsec Inc., an ingredient company,
spread misinformation about how carbon monoxide is used in meat packaging in hopes of creating a fear-based
increase in the firm's business. With
their hands out, companies like this
portray food-related businesses as cogs
in a money-grubbing machine without
regard for food safety.
And just when you think efforts
to free unscrupulous plaintiffs of accountability for their gluttonous behavior have been exhausted, another
posse of bottom feeders seems to
emerge. The latest case targets the
French drug company, Sanofi-aventis,
which manufactures the popular prescription sleep aid, Ambien.
According to reports in The New

York Times this past month, plaintiffs precedent that opens the door for a
filed a class-action lawsuit against the flood of litigation based on the prempharmaceutical company, claiming the ise that consumers' behavior and acdrug caused them to literally sleepwalk countability vanishes as soon as they
through activities that posed threats to swipe their credit card or write their
their safety and that of others. Some check for a product. If nocturnal binging gets the "green"
users of the drug say
light in this case,
they have driven in
With their hands out,
where does the
their sleep, and othbuck stop? Who is
ers report sleepwalkcompanies like this
to say an unrelated
ing in public and actingredient in food
ing belligerently.
portray food-related
or its packaging
Among the plaintiffs is a Florida
businesses as cogs in a won't one day be
linked to a behavior
woman who says
deemed worthy of
several years of
giant money-grubbing
an expensive judgtaking the drug has
machine without
ment, not on the
caused her dress size
basis of scientific
to increase from a
regard for food safety.
evidence, but emosize 1 to a size 12 as
tions.
a result of her binge
Maybe I'm dayeating in her sleep.
Researchers have linked the drug dreaming, but it seems the majority
to some of these side effects in rare of U.S. consumers realize the value
cases, and everyone agrees sedatives of moderation and that their behavior,
should only be taken under a doctor's health and waistline - whether induced
care. I would like to point out, howev- by alcohol, Krispy Kreme Doughnuts,
er, that nowhere is exponential weight carbon monoxide or prescription medigain or obesity listed as a side effect cation - is their own responsibility.
Unfortunately, it only takes one person
of Ambien.
Like lawsuits brought against the to ruin a worthy celebration.
fast-food industry, the Ambien claims
- By Joel Crews, Editor
hover dangerously close to setting a
jcrews@sosland.com

MEAT&POULTRY
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Editor
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Jeff Chilton
Dr. Temple Grandin
Steve Kay
Leo Quigley
Robert Savage
Bernard Shire
Richard Stier
10

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April 2006

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Meat + Poultry - April 2006

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