Pink slime beef producer sues ABC News for $1.2 billion over report exposing sickening beef industry practices

Monday, September 17, 2012 by: Jonathan Benson, staff writer
Tags: pink slime, ABC News, lawsuit

(NaturalNews) A major producer of the infamous "pink slime" meat product that captured headlines back in the spring is suing ABC News, news anchor Diane Sawyer, and several other individuals for what it claims was "a month-long vicious, concerted disinformation campaign" about "lean finely textured beef." Beef Products Inc. (BPI) and several of its affiliate companies are seeking a whopping $1.2 billion in damages from ABC News for exposing pink slime to the public, a move the company says "severely damaged" its business.

BPI is claiming that much of the information disseminated by ABC News about pink slime was defamatory, including its very use of the term pink slime, according to Courthouse News Service (CNS). BPI maintains that pink slime is not actually slime, but rather a legitimate form of beef that has been widely used in beef products for several decades without incident, that is until the public recently became aware of its existence.

Since 'pink slime' has never been properly labeled, shouldn't the public be suing BPI instead?

But like genetically-modified organisms (GMO), pink slime has never been properly labeled in beef products because producers like BPI have long claimed that it is just beef, and thus does not require additional labeling. But as we pointed out previously, pink slime is not just beef like BPI claims -- it is more of a beef "paste," at best, that has been heavily treated with toxic ammonia chemicals and processed into a mush that looks more like soft-serve ice cream than actual meat. (http://www.naturalnews.com)

The fact that the presence of pink slime in conventional beef has been veiled from the public for more than 20 years is much more concerning than any monetary loss that BPI and others in the industry have sustained as a result of their dirty little secret being made public. If anything, the public should be suing BPI for hiding a toxic food additive in the beef supply all these years, rather than BPI suing the media for merely doing its job by reporting on an issue that is obviously of major concern.

'Pink slime' is not just beef; many credible experts still question its safety

Even so, BPI denies that pink slime is anything other than actual beef, and continues to maintain that ABC News ran an unfair hatchet job on the product, which has resulted in many major retailers and even the McDonald's chain deciding to remove the additive from their products. Now that the public is aware of its existence, pink slime's days are clearly numbered -- and BPI seems to be fully aware of this, which is why the company is now apparently trying to extract large sums of cash from its whistleblowers and their enablers, which in this case happens to be ABC News.

"Thanks to ABC News, Kit Foshee (a former BPI employee) and other whistleblowers shared their concerns about BPI," said Amanda Hitt, Director of the Food Integrity Campaign, a whistleblower advocacy group that counseled Foshee after he was fired from BPI for speaking out about pink slime. "Doing so took enormous courage for which (ABC News) should be honored, not attacked. We believe that this product is questionable."

Sources for this article include:

http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/09/17/50340.htm

http://www.agriview.com