Commentary
Big business is hatching a new plan to protect itself from the backlash of angry buyers. The old school “buyer beware” is being replaced with a new “government okayed” line of thinking.Perhaps tobacco companies birthed this strategy by putting the surgeon general’s warning on packages of cigarettes. When sued by cancer victims, the companies’ initial defense appeared to be that the warning label absolved them of liability since it disclosed the possibility of bad health consequences.
The second big permutation on the theme was when a landscaper sued Monsanto for his non-hodgkins lymphoma several years ago. When the jury ruled Monsanto liable and awarded billions in damages, it spurred thousands of similar suits, many of which are still pending today. When Bayer purchased Monsanto, it inherited these glyphosate suits and has been trying to get out from under them ever since.
The latest attempt was to use the pharmaceutical template created by President Ronald Reagon and Sen. Ted Kennedy which created a vaccine liability shield. The entire nation has watched what that spawned, going from a handful of dispersed vaccines per child to dozens. The adverse reaction registry notwithstanding, parents who believe their children were damaged have received short shrift from the vaccine industry and government health agencies.
I'll never forget being in the room Jan. 19, 2025 when Del Bigtree (founder and host of Highwire) asked the 500 attendees of the MAHA presidential inaugural ball: “how many of you have suffered from vaccine injured children?” I couldn’t count fast enough, but a conservative estimate would be 150 hands went up, representing the distress and pent-up frustration of those parents. In that moment I understood.
Here were parents whose little bundle of baby joy brought immeasurable hope for the future. First steps. First words. Learning to read. Extracurricular activities--sports, drama, craft, mowing lawns. First romance. First employment. Marriage. And of course, first grandbabies. Every parent in history goes through this rapid trajectory of hopes and dreams when they birth babies. Assembled in that room, however, was the heart and soul of the MAHA movement; that core was parents whose baby dreams melted into lifelong therapy and ongoing dependency. In RFK Jr. they had a champion; someone listened; someone cared; someone would take their injustice into the heart of the industry-agency fraternity.
I can’t relate this story, either in writing or verbally, without getting chills from the palpable outpouring of gratitude and resolve in that room. While that angst centered on the vaccine industry specifically and the health policy generally, it is a cultural indicator of a peasant uprising against the lords of industry.
I believe the lords of big business, ensconced in their boardrooms, are watching these developments with increasing uneasiness. They’re hearing “I’m angry and I’m not going to take it anymore” from an increasingly dissatisfied populace. Empowered by the alternative media, social media, and podcasts, the plebes share their stories and find solace in numbers.
The favorite method of the powerful toward the powerless is to isolate and make troublemakers feel like they are the only ones who feel disenfranchised. Whether it’s a farmer trying to get permission for employee housing, a parent suffering a child’s vaccine injury, or a whistleblower in a bureaucracy, mavericks often hear “you’re the only one.” The flip side of this protocol is the dismissive “everyone’s doing it” so what appears aberrant becomes perfectly normal. I suggest modern drug addiction or teen suicide falls into this protocol.
Regardless, the lords are fighting back and their tactic seems to be trying to curry cover from government agencies. The glyphosate defense from day one has been that since the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says the herbicide is safe, the manufacturer can’t be held liable for anyone it sickens. Empirical scientific indictment takes a back seat to government approval.
Losing in the courtroom, Bayer and friends crafted and lobbied for liability indemnity. It showed up first in a wide-ranging appropriations bill. Ecological farmers like me cheered when it was stripped out. But the effort is worth noting. It sought to cover bad practice and product with government permission. The effort’s foundation was that if the EPA determines a product is safe, then the maker is indemnified against liability. The agriculture chemical companies appear to be taking a page out of the vaccine playbook. Be assured this setback won’t be long term; probably it will be inserted in any upcoming farm bill, if such a bill ever comes to a vote.
Many states in the last couple of decades enacted Right to Farm laws to protect farmers from nuisance suits regarding dust, noise, and especially odors. I’ve always called these “Right to Stink up the Neighborhood” laws.
Today, HB433 in Florida is the latest permutation of these efforts and it wreaks of industry protectionism. Known within the health and ecological farming community as “The Gag Law,” it is buried in the 2026 Florida Farm Bill. The gist is to give agriculture companies free hand to litigate against damaging comments, like disparaging sugar or impugning herbicides.
The proposed legislation enables agriculture entities to recover damages for disparagement, for making statements of “false information not based on reliable scientific data” that the perpetrator could have or should have known before uttering the statements. The objective seems clear: to intimidate anyone who would dare to question “any agricultural food product” and “any agriculture practice used in the production of such products.” It carries a two-year statute of limitations on disparaging comments.
In case you missed the memo, sugar is under attack, finally. The new inverted Dietary Guidelines and supporting information take aggressive aim at both sugar and ultra-processed food. A formal definition of that designation is in the works.
As Americans awaken to food additives, sugar, chemical dangers, nutrient deficiency, agricultural pollution, and nightmarish factory farming, the market is beginning to shift. The Dietary Guidelines upended it. What does a lord in his conventional business castle do in the face of this?
One option, which is clearly being tried, is to find protection behind the skirts of bureaucracy and politicians. Protection from questions. Protection from damaging comments. To forestall the shifting market, the industry is trying to build a moat by shutting down discourse, liability, and any disparaging discussion. According to ACRES USA, during the 1990s 13 states passed what were commonly known as “veggie laws” and the most public use was a suit by Texas cattleman against Oprah Winfrey for saying she wouldn’t eat a hamburger. She won, but only after a protracted court case and nearly $1 million defending herself.
This is the litigation extortion the industry seeks to wield against more common people who dare to question whether food is healthy or whether an agricultural practice is ecologically sound. The philosophical schizophrenia exhibited by big ag conservatives who generally defend property rights, lower taxes, regulations, and smaller government on one hand, then want to unleash bigger government and more regulation when their activities become questioned on the other hand, is quite profound. Some would call it hypocrisy.
The right approach is to let the market speak. Interventive government policies corrupt the conversation and compromise the free flow of ideas. This is patently un-American. Letting people decide is the ultimate liberty.
