Beef Products Inc. of South Dakota held a news conference
today to say it is launching a $1.2-billion defamation lawsuit against ABC News
over reports of the “pink slime” the company produces using a process it
patented.
The company calls the product lean finely-textured beef, but
a microbiologist who used to work for the United States Department of
Agriculture calls it “pink slime” and the news media has been using that term.
BPI closed three of its processing plants and reduced work
shifts at its main plant because sales plunged in the wake of the publicity. A
total of 700 of its workers were laid off.
BPI said during a news conference in Lincoln, Nebraska,
today that ABC News misled consumers to believe the product is unhealthy and
unsafe.
"It caused consumers to believe that our lean beef is
not beef at all- that it's an unhealthy pink slime, unsafe for public
consumption, and that somehow it got hidden in the meat," Chicago lawyer
Dan Webb, the company’s lawyer.
ABC News, owned by The Walt Disney Co., denied BPI's
claims.
"The lawsuit is without merit. We will contest it
vigorously," Jeffrey W. Schneider, the news station's senior vice
president, said in a brief statement Thursday.
Another company AFA Foods Inc., was bankrupted, and the
receiver has sold three of its plants and closed a fourth at Ashville, New
York, this week.
BPI has garnered political support, including the governors
of Iowa and Nebraska.
