Freedom Requires Tolerating Nonsense

You deserve a break today, so I’ve declared this column a sex-free zone. I’m going to write about our right to beef about beef.

In Amarillo, talk show queen Oprah Winfrey is defending herself and her production company in a $12 million suit charging she defamed beef. Her April 16, 1996, show on “dangerous food” featured a vegetarian’s wild charges about the risk of “mad cow” disease in the United States. Howard Lyman, a Humane Society official, said cattle feed made of granulated meat from dead cows - “feeding cows to cows” - could create an epidemic that would make AIDS seem like the common cold.

This is the first test of Texas’ 1995 “veggie libel” law, which creates the right to sue for defamation of a perishable agricultural product. Defendants must show their comments were based on “reasonable and reliable scientific inquiry, facts or data.”

Twelve other states have similar laws and nine others are considering protecting their farm products from unfair criticism.

These laws limit free-speech rights guaranteed by the Constitution and aren’t likely to stand up in court. But they highlight a real problem: Most of us don’t know enough science to evaluate risks intelligently. We’re suspicious when an industry defends its safety record; we may not be suspicious enough when a group with an agenda - animal rights, for instance - issues dire warnings. Kooks and alarmists can start costly safety scares.

“Mad cow” disease, officially known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is believed to have killed 20 people in Britain; there are no reported cases in the United States. It may have spread from sick to healthy cows through feed made from dead cattle, a practice legal in the United States at the time of the Oprah show but later banned.

The yuck factor of cow-eating cows impressed Winfrey. “It has just stopped me cold from eating another burger,” she told her audience of 20 million viewers.

Cowmen are mad about the “mad cow” show because cattle prices, already declining, fell to a 10-year low after it aired. They claim they lost $10.3 million.

Winfrey’s attorneys claim other factors caused prices to fall.

The opposing point of view was represented on the show but most of the air time went to cannibalistic cows and Lyman’s claims BSE is lurking in American cattle.

The editors cut a comment by William Hueston, then a mad cow expert for the Agriculture Department, who said: “I was in Great Britain last week and ate beef. I’ll go back next week and eat beef.”

When the cowmen beefed about bias, Winfrey invited a National Cattlemen’s Beef Association specialist back a week after the original show to defend the safety of U.S. meat and point out there’s no evidence of BSE in American herds. The ranchers sued anyhow.

“Veggie libel” laws were inspired by the 1989 Alar scare, which devastated apple growers. A sensationalized “60 Minutes” report, citing a study by an anti-pesticides group, persuaded parents apples were unsafe for children.

Just last week, the Environmental Working Group charged some baby foods with peaches, apples and grapes contain dangerous levels of insecticides called organophosphates, comparing the risk to lead poisoning and nerve gas.

The Environmental Protection Agency is looking for a scientifically sound way to measure safety levels. By current standards, residues in baby food are one-hundredth of the safety level, if there are residues at all, Heinz Co. responded.

“Safety first” is too simple a slogan. If there’s no real risk, scaring parents away from serving fruit to their kids will make children less healthy. Not everyone can afford high-priced organic food.

But our scientific naivete is not a valid reason to stifle open discussion of food safety issues. The threat of a lawsuit will deter irresponsible critics. It also will silence critics who should be heard.

Too much of our lives has come under the sway of lawyers already. In a free society, people should be able to say stupid, scientifically unsupportable things without fear of ending up in court.

Besides, if we think we can hold TV (or radio) talk shows to standards of rationality and reliability, we’re nuttier than fruitcake and madder than those British cows.

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