South Dakota company sues ABC News over “Pink Slime” panic piece

Back in March, ABC news aired a breathless “investigative report” showing that a toxic substance - “pink slime” - was being put into meat, especially meat consumed by the children in school lunch programs.

The main result of this “news,” in this already pathetic economy, was the cancellation of contracts, the closing of three factories, and the evaporation of 650 jobs.  Not sure how that helped the children in the affected homes and communities.

Now Beef Products Inc. of Dakota Dunes, SD, is suing ABC News:

...seeking $1.2 billion in damages for roughly 200 “false and misleading and defamatory” statements about the product officially known as lean, finely textured beef, said Dan Webb, BPI’s Chicago-based attorney. The lawsuit filed in a South Dakota state court also accuses ABC News of improper interference with the relationships between BPI and its customers.

“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,” Webb said before the company’s official announcement.

Although the anti-business panic was induced by the Administration friendly, liberal mainstream media, President Obama’s own Cabinet appointee defends what the beef company was putting out into the market:

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has also defended the product, saying the federal government wouldn’t allow the product if it was unsafe.