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The Courts Biotech

Lawsuit Attacks Florida's Lab-Grown Meat Ban As Unconstitutional (wired.com) 183

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Florida's ban on cultivated meat is being challenged in federal court in a lawsuit that was filed yesterday. The case is being brought by the cultivated meat firm Upside Foods and the Institute of Justice (IJ), a nonprofit public interest law firm. Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed the legislation making the sale of cultivated meat illegal in Florida on May 1, and the bill came into effect on July 1. Alabama passed a similar bill banning cultivated meat that will come into effect from October 1. The case brought by Upside Foods and the IJ argues that Florida's ban is unconstitutional in three different ways. First, they argue, the ban violates theSupremacy Clause that gives federal law priority over state law in certain instances. The court case argues that the Florida ban violates two different provisions in the Federal Meat Inspection Act and Poultry Products Inspection Act.

The legal complaint (PDF) also alleges that the ban violates theCommerce Clause, which gives the US Congress exclusive power to regulate interstate commerce. The IJ argues that the Commerce Clause restricts states from enacting laws that unduly restrict interstate commerce, and that Florida's ban in its current form has the effect of discriminating against it. "Florida's law has nothing to do with protecting health and safety," said IJ senior attorney Paul Sherman in a press conference today. "It is a transparent example of economic protectionism." Sherman said that Upside Foods and the IJ would also apply for a preliminary injunction that would allow the company to sell cultivated meat in Florida while the legal challenge is still ongoing. The complaint says that Upside had planned to distribute its cultivated chicken at Art Basel in Miami in early December 2024. The company protested the Florida ban by holding a tasting of its chicken on June 27 in Miami, shortly before the ban came into effect. Sherman said that the Alabama ban was also "in our sights" but that the IJ had targeted the Florida law as it came into effect before the Alabama ban. "We're hoping we'll be able to get a quick ruling [in Florida] on a preliminary injunction there," and use that as a precedent to challenge the Alabama ban, he said.
"Consumers should decide what kind of meat they want to buy and feed their families -- not politicians," said the Good Food Institute (GFI), a nonprofit focused on advancing alternative proteins and which is serving as a consulting consul in this case. "This lawsuit seeks to protect these consumer rights, along with the rights of companies to compete in a fair and open marketplace."
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Lawsuit Attacks Florida's Lab-Grown Meat Ban As Unconstitutional

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  • by Rockoon ( 1252108 ) on Wednesday August 14, 2024 @08:09AM (#64704738)
    By simply changing LAB to GMO, all the roles reverse.
    • by GoTeam ( 5042081 )
      If it's clearly labeled as lab grown and it's received testing to prove that it's safe for consumption, there shouldn't be any issue with allowing its sale.
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by e3m4n ( 947977 )

        How many times are we going to learn,10years too late, something assumed safe, clearly was not? From causing cancer, to heart valve issues, to Mad Cow disease, etc. the same people demanding the sale will be the same people blaming the government for allowing the sale once we find out it causes non-reversible sterility or some other fucked up shit. Starlink corn is no longer ‘fit for human consumption’. Imagine Monsanto putting this lawsuit before the courts to make it so you can be duped into c

        • by GoTeam ( 5042081 ) on Wednesday August 14, 2024 @08:46AM (#64704870)
          Again, (in my stupid opinion) as long as it's clearly labeled as "lab grown" people can make their own choices. I'd never eat it, but some people seem really proud to be test subjects.
          • by e3m4n ( 947977 )

            should come with a written waiver they have to sign. These are the type people that will blame government for not 'protecting them' down the road. Lawsuits aside, they will run their mouth that the government was part of a conspiracy to make them sterile or whatever the hell the side effects are. God help us if it has a risk of making prions. I imagine the biggest customers are going to be vegans. How does the joke go? oh, yeah. How do you spot the Vegan at the party? Don't worry, she will find you. Some fr

            • by GoTeam ( 5042081 )

              These are the type people that will blame government for not 'protecting them' down the road. Lawsuits aside, they will run their mouth that the government was part of a conspiracy to make them sterile or whatever the hell the side effects are. God help us if it has a risk of making prions. I imagine the biggest customers are going to be vegans. How does the joke go? oh, yeah. How do you spot the Vegan at the party? Don't worry, she will find you. Some friend of hers will come down with mad cow diseases from some improperly folded protein and the conspiracy rumors will begin to fly. lol.

              Heh, no doubt. There is a shocking lack of personal responsibility these days. It runs from the highest levels of government down to the weakest among us. When some crazy state tries to mandate lab meat as the only acceptable meat to buy and consume, I'll be against that too.

              • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

                by BigZee ( 769371 )
                Personal responsibility can only go so far, especially if a product may be confusing or otherwise difficult to understand. People expect governments to protect them, certainly up to a point.
          • I'm with you, this seems more like DeSantis grandstanding for the ancient luddites in his state
        • by crmarvin42 ( 652893 ) on Wednesday August 14, 2024 @09:00AM (#64704934)
          That is, unfortunately, a question that is designed to be unanswerable.

          It is IMPOSSIBLE to get safety assessments perfect 100% of the time. There will ALWAYS be some level of "shit, we missed something". Therefore, the priority should be on having both a robust up-front assessment, and a robust post-approval monitoring, with a mechanism for reversing the initial approval. Which, for the record, is what we have. The biggest flaw in our current system is that the government employees responsible for managing this system are under staffed and under paid. I make 2x what my federal counterpart does, easily.

          The alternative is paralysis by analysis. It is impossible to prove a negative, so the alternative is to never approve anything new ever again. Then we will never have to retract an approval, sure, but we will miss out on the benefits of those new things that truly are safe.

          As for the specific examples you trot out, most of the fear mongering about those is over-blown. The dose makes the poison, and all things at a high enough intake will kill you, or at the very least make you sick. We should not deny the vast majority of the population something that they will benefit from becuase a handful of individuals globally will abuse those same things. Cars kill people every day, and yet I don't see a whole lot of drive to ban them (though there is a well appreciated move to deprioritize the use of cars). Houses burn down, but I don't see a push to ban the use of combustable materials in home construction (quite the opposite, houses burn faster today than in the past due to the use of engineered materials). Electrical fires happen, but we don't ban electricity.

          You cannot live your life in fear of every possible harm out there. You'll end up committed for uncontrollable neuroticism in no time.
          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by mustafap ( 452510 )

            A general reply, not to you specifically. Does anyone think Ron DeSantis gives a shit about consumer safety? He's protecting his funders

            • by GoTeam ( 5042081 )

              Does anyone think Ron DeSantis gives a shit about consumer safety? He's protecting his funders

              It's funny how people always run on campaign finance reform and taking down lobbyists but nothing ever changes. Politicians get rich and citizens get screwed.

              • Until we stop paying attention to wha they say, and instead focus on what they do, this will continue.

                Would help immensly if the media didn't do such a piss-poor job of reporting on what they do. Also, if they stopped reporting what they say as what they think/beleive. All the media knows is what they say, they don't have access to their inner thoughts, so when a politician says "I believe X" but his actions don't support that claim, the media should be reporting it as "Politician says he believes X, but h
            • No shits given. (Score:5, Insightful)

              by zooblethorpe ( 686757 ) on Wednesday August 14, 2024 @12:08PM (#64705630)

              Does anyone think Ron DeSantis gives a shit about consumer safety?

              I don't think DeSantis gives any shits at all.

              Which helps explain why he looks constipated all the time.

        • by Hank21 ( 6290732 )

          How many times are we going to learn,10years too late, something assumed safe, clearly was not? From causing cancer, to heart valve issues, to Mad Cow disease, etc. the same people demanding the sale will be the same people blaming the government for allowing the sale once we find out it causes non-reversible sterility or some other fucked up shit. Starlink corn is no longer ‘fit for human consumption’. Imagine Monsanto putting this lawsuit before the courts to make it so you can be duped into consuming starlink. Sometimes it takes 20yrs for this shit to get discovered. Look at aspertame, zylotol, and other artificial sweeteners. Remember when Fen-Fen (sp?) was all the rwge in the 90s? Doctors putting people on that shit and people dying from heart valve issues? That shit was ‘tested’ ‘approved by the fda’ and deemed ‘safe’ too. It’s one thing to say the consumer should have the choice, but if the choices made based on insufficient information, is it really a informed choice?

          With that logic, we should ban a lot of existing items - Alcohol being at the top of the list... Oh wait, we tried that once... If we outlaw it, labs in South America with questionable quality controls are just gonna grow it and smuggle it across the boarder - better to make it legal and regulate it. We learned that with marijuana. :) :P

          • by e3m4n ( 947977 )

            alcohol existed long before the country was founded. I am talking about assuming something is safe based on a very short window of testing for something completely newly invented. Dry alcohol you snort is a good example. I believe they shut that shit down quickly. It was on the market less than a year. We banned bath salts in my state pretty damn fast too. They fell under the 'analogues' category of illicit drugs.

          • by HiThere ( 15173 )

            I doubt that lab grown meat has enough people who would buy it from smugglers to make the business worthwhile.

        • This is absurd, after proper testing and approval by the relevant agency if there's no evidence something is bad then it gets the green light. We shouldn't be having to hold off on new advancements of anything for decades because they might have negatives that we haven't discovered yet.

          The fact is the vast majority of things our government reviews and then approves for our consumption turn out fine for us. We shouldn't bring all human progress to a screatching halt because we get things wrong occasionally.

          • This is 100% about Florida being lobbied by meat producers (growers?). "Save our industry!"

            Of course it's going to run smack into trouble with the interstate commerce clause, and not just some modern interpretations of that clause but with the original founders intent of that clause (take that originalists!).

        • by fropenn ( 1116699 ) on Thursday August 15, 2024 @09:28AM (#64708366)
          We already KNOW red meat (and to a lesser extent pork and chicken) is bad for your health and can be dangerous - it is a major cause of heart disease and obesity, not to mention the occasional e. coli, salmonella, trichinosis...so let's not pretend that this is a choice between a "safe" and a "dangerous" option...because the option we already have is the dangerous one...
      • If it's clearly labeled as lab grown and it's received testing to prove that it's safe for consumption, there shouldn't be any issue with allowing its sale.

        Ok, I'm trying to figure out how labeling something as "lab grown" automatically makes it safe?

        Hell, I could maybe try to sell "lab grown" ebola....that doesn't exactly make it any safer than obtaining your ebola in the "wild"....

        • by GoTeam ( 5042081 )

          Ok, I'm trying to figure out how labeling something as "lab grown" automatically makes it safe?

          It doesn't. It informs the consumer that it is not meat from a living animal. Like I said above, I wouldn't eat it. Hell, animal meat could start labeling itself "real meat". As e3m4n said (correctly) above, sometimes you don't know something is bad for humans until much later. If it passes initial FDA testing and is deemed safe for human consumption, then people can decide if they want to be test subjects or not. I opt for "not".

          • It doesn't. It informs the consumer that it is not meat from a living animal. Like I said above, I wouldn't eat it.

            Ok...I misunderstood.

            I'd not eat it either.

            I'm on the fence a bit about allowing it....I'd think something for human consumption likely should go through years (ie decade or more) trials to make sure it doesn't have bad effects.

            But if allowed in, for sure....I'm big on labelling laws. I guess I'd be a bit more like you, if they'd just label things CLEARLY as Lab Grown, or GMO....etc.

            I am

            • by GoTeam ( 5042081 )

              I guess I'd be a bit more like you, if they'd just label things CLEARLY as Lab Grown, or GMO....etc.

              Exactly. We still need to keep a close eye on folks who try to change label laws. A few months back there was some fuss about meats that can be labeled "Product of USA". I think they got it right in the end, but it still bothers me that it was ever up for discussion. (I didn't follow that story as close as I should have)

        • by Targon ( 17348 )

          The FDA is where the, "safe" designation comes from. If the FDA approves it, then that's where it is acceptable for distribution as food(or medication). Note that nothing is going to force you to eat the stuff. I agree that people shouldn't automatically trust it, but on the flip side, there is a designation for "how much" is safe for fish at this point, due to how much pollution there is out there.

      • One issue is prepared foods. At the moment most of the fake food products cost more than the real ones. But if the price changes then prepared foods in the store or restaurants will go with the cheapest. Even if the restaurant didn't consciously make a switch then it will happen somewhere in the supply chain. It happens with seafood all the time.

        I don't care if people want to make or eat fake or lab grown "meat". Or "eggs", or "milk". Just do not call it by the same name as traditional product
      • It should be like what places that mandate pictures of lung disease on cigarette cartons. I want the entire package covered in photos of the "cultivation vats" with giant letters saying LAB GROWN front and center. That way I can very easily avoid this garbage.
      • by necro81 ( 917438 )

        If it's clearly labeled as lab grown and it's received testing to prove that it's safe for consumption, there shouldn't be any issue with allowing its sale.

        Except that the government MUST forbid it anyway, to prevent damage to Big Ag. Errrrm, I mean, the weakening of True Americans! DeSantis for President! Only he can prevent the contamination of our precious bodily fluids!

  • by cayenne8 ( 626475 ) on Wednesday August 14, 2024 @08:18AM (#64704758) Homepage Journal

    First, they argue, the ban violates theSupremacy Clause that gives federal law priority over state law in certain instances. The court case argues that the Florida ban violates two different provisions in the Federal Meat Inspection Act and Poultry Products Inspection Act.

    This stuff isn't "meat"...it didn't come from a dead animal....

    So, how could it violate any provision of a Federal Meat act or Poultry Product act?

    • by gtall ( 79522 )

      Sure it is meat. Unless you think animal grown meat has some sort of special cosmic aura that makes it meat. Maybe there is a Meat God that uses his/her magic wand and anoints the animal when it is conceived with a special Fairy Dust that designates the critter as meat.

      • Really? Look up the legal definition of meat then get back to us. That's how these things work.
      • by hey! ( 33014 )

        We're quibbling here. Anyone is free to define "meat" in a way that excludes or includes anything they want, but then we're actually arguing over their definition, not the actual thing in question.

        Florida has banned "lab grown meat", and the question should be do they have a rational and legally justifiable reason to ban *this specific product*?

        If you look at France, they've banned lab grown meat in order to protect traditional French agriculture and French food culture. It turns out the main reason for Fl

        • by skam240 ( 789197 )

          Neither France nor Florida has a legit reason to ban lab grown meat as a competitor to their traditional food industries given that lab grown meat is currently in no way, shape, or form a serious competitor to meat from an animal.

          Furthermore if we always passed legislation forbidding new industry from competing with old we'd still be driving around in carriages and wouldn't have anything modern or nice. It's particularly crazy to be hearing such things from conservatives as it's incredibly anti capitalism.

          • by hey! ( 33014 )

            Preventing the *emergence* of a future competitor is just as anti-competitive as restricting the business of an established one. Preemptive protectionism is not allowed in the European Common Market or by the US Commerce Clause. Saying you have to already be taking customers away from protected businesses before you can challenge an anti-competitive ban amounts to a catch-22.

            But in the case of France you're right -- it's too early to challenge the anticompetitive nature of France's ban. That's because th

      • It doesn't taste right if it never had a soul!

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Mspangler ( 770054 )

      The issue is fraud and the potential for fraud.

      If they prominently label it Advanced Chicken Substitute with a full list of ingredients and the words "not organic" and "unnatural " all over the package then it's fine to sell it. FrankenFood is also acceptable.

      Fake food is an issue. The dollar store has cans of Evaporated Creamer, an evaporated milk substitute make mostly of palm oil, emulsifiers, whey powder and sugar.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        It is real chicken, just not grown in an animal.

        The stuff that is grown in an animal is probably even more fake. They have to pump it full of various drugs to make it grow larger and keep it healthy. Then wash it in chlorine. I'd much rather have lab grown in a sterile environment and a carefully controlled feed of hormones and nutrients.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      It is meat though, and it did come from animal that is dead by now.

      Specifically, it's cancerous meat that came from dead animal that is fed nutrients so it can grow far beyond the normal limiting factors.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        It doesn't have cancer. That's now how it works.

        • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

          It doesn't have cancer because it is cancer. Cells can't have cancer, because cancer is something only multi-cellular organisms can have by definition. And what we do in lab is grow cancerous tumuors.

          And the reason we do that is because cancerous mutation is a mutation that removes limiter on growth. You don't want to grow whatever muscle the cell you are cultivating was meant to form. You want to grow a massive tumour that is far larger than what the original muscle could ever be. It's still going to be th

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            It's not cancer. Do you think children just have cancer and that's why they get bigger?

            • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

              I forget how little you understand about anything related to biology, being on the far left.

              Basics: Normal cells in multicellular organisms have a multiplication limiter. This is one of the key features of complex multicellular organisms, that allows us to become the correct shape and size.

              Children grow in accordance to the limiters. But even children get cancer. And that is when cellular mutation shuts down the limiter, and causes unlimited growth. At that point, human children develop tumours just like ev

    • by Targon ( 17348 )

      The intent of the law is that foodstuffs the FDA has approved shouldn't be blocked by individual states just because their governor is a jackass.

    • So, how could it violate any provision of a Federal Meat act or Poultry Product act?

      Presumably because laws have more words in them than just their titles, and despite containing only 4 words each you didn't even manage to read the titles correctly.

      Lab grown meat is grown from parts of an animal. The definition of "meat food product" includes anything made wholly or in part from any meat or any other part of a carcass. Literally on the first page of the Federal Meat Inspection Act it shows that it would apply.

  • This is just another attempt by DeSantis to violate people's rights, just like he tried with Don't Say Gay or book bans.

    People can decide if they want to eat this non-meat or not, just like they can choose which book they or their kids can read without government making that determination.

    For as much as a certain group likes to claim they're for freedom, they sure do like imposing the government's will over what freedoms people are allowed to have.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It's not unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has already ruled that there is no fundamental right to consume the food of your choice, and that government has unlimited authority to regulate food production and safety. The commerce clause argument is a red herring, because the State still has the right to regulate sales within the state, including banning the sale of anything it has the authority to ban, even if the Federal government ALSO has the authority to regulate interstate commerce.

    • Hypocrisy! / Hypocrisy! / Hypocri... ESS, WYE.
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by DesScorp ( 410532 )

      This is just another attempt by DeSantis to violate people's rights, just like he tried with Don't Say Gay or book bans.

      People can decide if they want to eat this non-meat or not, just like they can choose which book they or their kids can read without government making that determination.

      For as much as a certain group likes to claim they're for freedom, they sure do like imposing the government's will over what freedoms people are allowed to have.

      All states, being sovereign in their own boundaries, have the right to regulate commerce as they see fit as long as it doesn't violate federal law. California has banned everything from Foie Gras to Flamin' Hot Cheetos [stacker.com].
      A variety of finished foods and food ingredients are banned across a range of states.

      But, if you're really that impassioned about Mutant Meat, quest on. Maybe a judge will... carve out an exception for you! *rimshot*

      • by skam240 ( 789197 )

        Florida's ban is significantly more ridiculous then what you detail. Foie Gras has real life animal welfare issues even if you disagree and as for Cheetos, if you read your own link that's just schools banning them because they are messy which is not at all the same as a full state ban. Florida's ban is more ridiculous because lab grown meat is not at all a current competitor for meat from an animal (their stated reason for the ban being that it's to protect their native meat industry). Sure, someday it mig

    • Re:Exactly (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Wednesday August 14, 2024 @09:18AM (#64704976)

      Whatever happened to the free market sorting this out?

      If people don't like lab grown meat then the company will eventually go under. Why the need for government intervention? Oh wait, I know why. The cattle ranchers got scared and gave Rhonda Santis some cash to make it go away. https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/... [nbcmiami.com]

      Small government and personal responsibility and all that.

  • by The-Ixian ( 168184 ) on Wednesday August 14, 2024 @09:11AM (#64704968)

    Why wouldn't we want to do that?

    It's a no-brainer. ;)

    Seriously though, why kill a living, breathing, thinking and feeling life when it may be possible to get the same thing by just growing the substance without the suffering?

    • 1) Established interests object to the threat to their profit models

      2) Religion, leveraged by those mentioned in point 1.

      3) People who are just generally afraid of change, ignorant of the risks and rewards, and incapable of doing the math even if they understood the issues.

    • by skam240 ( 789197 )

      Irrational aversions. To many for some reason the mass of cooked animal cells one is eating is unappealing if they don't come off a dead animal. Absolutely no idea why that's an issue but these types of things come up.

      It's like eating bugs (and I kind of figure I'll get trolled for this), there's absolutely nothing wrong with eating them, humans have been doing it for millennia. For some reason though nowadays people don't want to eat bugs because they're "icky" even though we eat tons of food that if you r

  • And with that (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Wednesday August 14, 2024 @09:28AM (#64704998)

    Suddenly the republicans have a problem with the free market.

  • Lab grown meat is a great idea in theory, in practice it's a very hard problem that won't be solved any time soon
    The ban is purely political theater at this point, since it bans something that doesn't exist in order to make a political statement

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • In the meantime we continue to pave over and build on farmland causing the remaining land to be pushed harder and harder to produce

    • That's a great theoretical question, but it's not something we need to worry about now.

      Remember, we live in a world where we routinely burn massive amounts of staple crops because there's too damn much of it.

      We overproduce food. People go hungry for other reasons.

  • It is ironic that the political philosophy that loves to promote "consumer choice" (to the point of naming websites and lobbying groups that) when opposing things like regulations turns around and bans an entire technological path.

  • I am very much against this artificial meat substitute. Humans are intended to eat real food like meat, eggs, and fruit. We have not developed over time to each artificial lab grown concoctions. For once, I agree with DeSantis and hope this lawsuit is thrown out.

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