House
Votes to Ban
'Obesity Lawsuits' Against Fast Food Industry
By
Todd Zwillich
Medicare
Recognizes Obesity as Disease
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,125902,00.html
House
Passes 'Cheeseburger Bill'
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,113836,00.html
Business
Rebuffs Obesity Charges Against Fast-Food
Chains http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,90992,00.html
House
Panel Weighs Obesity Lawsuits
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,89930,00.html
Overweight
Americans who blame fast food restaurants
for causing their obesity won’t
get their day in court if the U.S. House
of Representatives gets its way. House
lawmakers on Wednesday passed a bill banning
obesity-related lawsuits against restaurants
and food manufacturers. More than 20 states
already have such laws on the books. Supporters
said the bill was intended to prioritize
personal responsibility among an increasingly
obese American population. “The
bill seeks to block lawsuits by people
because they ate too much and got fat,”
says Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, one of
the bill’s sponsors. “We should
not encourage lawsuits that blame others
for our own choices and could bankrupt
an entire industry,” notes Rep.
Lamar Smith, R-Texas.
Fast-Food
Fights Still, there is little evidence
that obesity lawsuits are threatening
the food and restaurant industry. Only
a handful of cases blaming restaurant
food or advertising for obesity have ever
been filed, and only one major case remains
open. That’s a case first filed
in 2002 alleging that misleading advertising
by McDonald’s restaurants influenced
New York teenagers to eat too much of
the food and become obese. If Wednesday’s
bill -- which passed 306 to 120 -- becomes
law, the suit will be thrown out of court
and all future suits would be banned.
Nearly
two-thirds of American adults are classified
as overweight and about 30 percent are
obese, according to the CDC. Fifteen percent
of children aged 6 to 11 are also classified
as overweight. Critics charged that courts
have already functioned properly by dismissing
obesity cases they found frivolous and
that the bill was giving special rights
to restaurants and food manufacturers.
“Congress is headed in the wrong
direction with this bill, which removes
any and all incentives for the food industry
to improve” the healthiness of their
products,” says Rep. Bob Filner,
D-Calif. The Food Products Association,
an industry group headed by former Republican
Congressman Cal Dooley, praised the vote
in a statement that called the bill “timely
and needed.”
Wednesday’s vote was the second
time the House passed the lawsuit ban.
An identical bill passed in March 2004
but was never acted upon in the Senate.
The same fate could await this year’s
bill, as Senate Republican leaders have
suggested that their docket before a scheduled
pre-Thanksgiving recess is already jammed.
