When Oprah Winfrey Was Sued by Texas Cattlemen for Criticizing Beef

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On April 16, 1996, Oprah Winfrey did a show about mad cow disease. Six weeks later, a couple of Texas cattlemen had a cow (sorry). Support us:

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Thanks to Doctor Dreamchip for our lovely theme song!

Aubrey: Hi, everybody, and welcome Maintenance Phase, the podcast that dares to answer the question, wheres the beef?

Michael: Oh, no, you did one of the puns. I was going to read you all the headlines with the puns. [laughs]

Aubrey: I figured I should bring the timeliest reference that I could to this show.

Michael: The other really good timely one is a lot of the headlines are like, “Cattlemens Association has a cow over Oprahs comments.”

Aubrey: [laughs]

Michael: That wouldnt even make sense to people anymore.

Aubrey: Well, this is also the early 1990s when people are like, “Woo, Bart Simpson.”

Michael: Hes animated, but hes bad. Incredible.

Aubrey: [laughs] You can tell by his slingshot and his haircut.

Michael: I am Michael Hobbes.

Aubrey: I am Aubrey Gordon. If you would like to support the show, you can do that at patreon.com/maintenancephase. You can also subscribe through Apple Podcasts. And you can get T-shirts, mugs, tote bags, all manner of things at TeePublic. We will link all of that for you in the show notes.

Michael, I am at a loss, because I was steeled for a tiny interrupting machine, and it didnt happen.

Michael: I know. [laughs] I was like, “The best way to fuck with her is to not do anything to let her do it.” [laughs]

Aubrey: [laughs] You were 100% right. I am on my heels.

Michael: One step ahead of you. Nice try.

Aubrey: [laughs] Ah, Michael.

Michael: Aubrey.

Aubrey: Today, we are talking about a thing that I actually know almost nothing about.

Michael: Im so excited.

Aubrey: Which is the Oprah v. Cattlemens Association court bout of the 1990s, right?

Michael: Oprah v. Beef. Yes.

Aubrey: I made the mistake of telling one of my family members last night what our show is about, and they were like, “Oh, thats how she met Dr. Phil.” And I was like, “Shut up, shut up.”

Michael: Oh, no, you got a spoiler for something that happened 30 years ago?

Aubrey: I did, and it really fucked me up.

Michael: What do you actually know? If you were forced to put a chronology together, what would you say?

Aubrey: I believe the Cattlemens Association or beef ranchers or something came after Oprah and filed suit against her. It was a big lawsuit, but I dont know why. My understanding was that it was around something relating to talking about mad cow disease.

Michael: Yes.

Aubrey: My assumption is that she did a show where she was like, “Mad cow is a thing.” And they were like, “Get out of town.”

Michael: Thats basically it, Aubrey. We can close now. [crosstalk] Roughly, youre not–

Aubrey: [laughs] Thanks for joining us on our shortest episode of Maintenance Phase. [laughs]

Michael: Youre not going to get a huge twist in this, but this is a two-part episode. Like all two-part episodes, this is basically just an excuse to talk about a bunch of other shit and put Oprah in the title of the show so that you download it [Aubrey laughs] thinking its going to be fun. But its mostly about mad cow disease and the ins and outs of American libel law, which is actually, weirdly interesting.

Aubrey: Okay.

Michael: So, to get to the beef in 1996, we have to talk about the apples in 1989.

Aubrey: Heres what I know about apples in the 1980s.

Michael: Okay.

Aubrey: There were three kinds, and they were all bad.

Michael: [laughs]

Aubrey: Red, yellow, green, bad.

Michael: So, in February of 1989, 60 Minutes runs a segment that was warning the US population about the dangers of pesticides. There was a pesticide called Alar that farmers sprayed on apple trees to keep the apples from falling down and getting bruised. The segment opens with a graphic of a red delicious apple, like, morphing into skull and crossbones.

Aubrey: [laughs]

Michael: Its like morphing technology of this amount.

Aubrey: The audacity of news graphics in the 1980s is unparalleled. I love this so much.

Michael: They never should have given you motherfuckers morphing.

Aubrey: [laughs]

Michael: Remember the Michael Jackson video? And it was like, “Lets put morphing in there, because we got to morph it.”

Aubrey: Oh, my God. Yes.

Michael: The segment begins with Ed Bradley saying, “The most potent cancer-causing agent in our food supply is a substance sprayed on apples to keep them on the trees longer and make them look better. Thats the conclusion of a number of scientific experts. And who is most at risk? Children, who may someday develop cancer from this one chemical called Alar.” And then, this is the rest of the segment.

Aubrey: Oh, my God. This is one of my other favorite things, is watching an extremely dated news segment.

Michael: Dude, I know.

Aubrey: Wellness. What is it?

Michael: So, heres the clip. Theyre going to say daminozide, which is the official name for the pesticide, which is sold as Alar.

Reporter: Janet Hathaways organization, the Natural Resources Defense Council, has just completed the most careful study yet on the effect of daminozide and seven other cancer-causing pesticides in the food children eat.

Janet: Just from these eight pesticides, what were finding is that the risk of developing cancer is approximately 250 times what EPA says is an acceptable level of cancer in our population.

Reporter: Kids are at a high risk from UDMH, because they drink so much apple juice. The average preschooler drinks 18 times more apple juice than his or her mother. If those apples were treated with daminozide, the cancer risk is perilously high.

Aubrey: It sounds pretty damning-

Michael: Pretty bad.

Aubrey: -but also, I know that the science around carcinogens is squishier than we like to talk about, and I know that the news media loves a story like this, and I know that the number one way to take something down is say it causes cancer.

Michael: I feel like what youre really saying is, “Mike, I know the premise of the show. So, its probably more complicated.” [crosstalk]

Aubrey: Yeah, thats exactly right. Im approaching this with caution because Ive been recording this show with you for three years. [laughs]

Michael: The only reason were going to talk about this is if its a little bit more complicated than it seems.

Aubrey: But also, listen, if I just saw this on TV, Id be like, “Holy shit. I got to stop buying apples.”

Michael: This segment is basically a preview of a report that is about to come out from the Natural Resources Defense Council, which is an environmental NGO, where they tested a bunch of different pesticides for their carcinogen-ness, like how dangerous are all of these pesticides. Alar turned out to be by far the most dangerous one. Its very convincing in that its like, “Okay, theres this evil chemical which has this scary name.” And then, we cut to footage of kids and its like, “Well, in their little kid bodies, every carcinogen is more concentrated.” And kids are drinking, they say, 18 times more apple juice than adults.

Aubrey: This also taps into a very real track record of chemical companies doing horrible things.

Michael: Yes.

Aubrey: This is a little bit like if someone tells you that Big Pharma did something that was trash, youre like, “Yeah, that tracks.”

Michael: This is like the central tension at the heart of this entire episode. On one hand, this is obviously a little overblown, this report, but on the other hand, its like a fucking pesticide company, which is lying to us constantly because profit motive is the number one thing that they operate based on.

Aubrey: And also, listen, at this point, I was a kid watching a TV show called Captain Planet, where the villains were polluters.

Michael: God, that show was such great propaganda.

Aubrey: I loved that shit.

Michael: I mean that in the most complimentary way. [laughs]

Aubrey: I loved it so much.

Michael: So, as you would expect, right after this 60 Minutes segment comes out and the environmental NGO publishes this report, theres mass panic. 10 large school districts around the country, like New York, Chicago, LA, they pull apples from their cafeterias.

Aubrey: Whoa.

Michael: The apple industry just completely fucking tanks. Theres reports of a parent calling Poison Control and asking if its safe to pour apple juice down the drain, like its acid– [laughs]

Aubrey: Okay. Its not paint, guys.

Michael: Yeah, I know. People really took this stuff very seriously. Theres also a report of a mom chasing after her kids school bus and being like, “I packed him an apple in his lunch. Give me the lunch back.”

Aubrey: Okay.

Michael: People just losing their minds about this shit.

Aubrey: She was confused. She thought it was the SnackWells CookieMan.

Michael: Yeah. [laughs]

Aubrey: Ooh, callback.

Michael: Eventually, the manufacturer pulls Alar from the market. So, you cannot get Alar in America anymore. This is why we dont have any apples, because theyre all on the ground. But then, the apple industry is so mad about this that they file a lawsuit against 60 Minutes and CBS and the local affiliates for libel.

Aubrey: Big Apple.

Michael: Big Apple. The lawsuit is kind of funny. So, the first problem with this lawsuit is that its not clear who can sue over a claim like this because this is something that affects the entire apple industry. The lawsuit is filed by a couple of essentially random apple growers in Washington State. In their lawsuit, they say, “60 Minutes did not employ the term “red apples” but the visuals accompanying the spoken word left no doubt that red apples constituted the subject matter, nor was Washington State referenced by name, although thanks to a longstanding, aggressive marketing approach taken by the Washington State Apple Advertising Commission, it is commonly known throughout the country, if not the world, that Washington is the prime producer of red apples.”

Aubrey: Is that widely known?

Michael: Its not even like apple farmers. Its like red apple farmers and theyre like, “You have libeled the good name of red apples.”

Aubrey: Ill tell you what, at this point, red apples are red delicious, and those things come pre-libeled.

Michael: [laughs]

Aubrey: Those things are already bad. Their product is libel against their product.

Michael: So, the Washington State apple industry files this huge lawsuit. One of the judges– Sometimes, judges are trying to be cute with their decisions. One of the judges says, “Apples havent received such bad press since Genesis.”

Aubrey: Okay.

Michael: I get it. Thats a cute little zinger, but I love judges doing shtick in their little opinions.

Aubrey: [laughs]

Michael: Yeah. So, in their lawsuit, the apple growers list three false claims that were in the 60 Minutes segment that theyre basing this lawsuit on. The first is, the most potent cancer-causing agent in our food supply is a substance known as Alar. The second is, we know that Alar causes cancer, and over a lifetime, 1 child out of every 4,000 will develop cancer from these eight pesticides.

Aubrey: Those last two seem potentially really hard to prove.

Michael: I will say in defense of this lawsuit. First of all, a lot of apple growers were genuinely put out of business by this. The apple industry was decimated for a couple of months, it eventually came back. But this is a perishable product, so it just sits there and rots, because you cant sell anything because the price crashes. The segment is straightforwardly scaremongering bullshit.

The actual context of Alar and the EPA and everything that was going on was this pesticide had been approved in 1968. There was a whole approval process in which they did a bunch of studies to determine whether it was a carcinogen. So, its not like it was just put on the market with no process behind it. Its on the market for a couple of years. And then theres essentially one lab at a university in Oklahoma that does a test in 1973 on a bunch of rats where they give rats, a fuck ton of Alar. They give them– the apple growers will later say that to be exposed to this much Alar, you would have to eat 28,000 apples a day.

Aubrey: Holy shit. This is like the Diet Coke rat studies where theyre like-

Michael: Yeah, exactly.

Aubrey: “We just injected it into their brains at twice their body weight.” You are like, “All right. Yeah.”

Michael: Theyre just blasting them. They do one study in 1973 on rats that finds its a carcinogen. They do another one in 1977 that I believe is on hamsters, which also finds that its a carcinogen. After these two studies come out in the 1970s, the EPA forms a panel. They look at this evidence and theyre like, “We dont know that this is all that big of a deal.” Theres actually a really interesting debate going on in science at the time about whether you can determine whether something is a carcinogen by blasting animals with high doses of it, because the toxicity of a substance is oftentimes totally dependent on the dosage. So, if you have too much alcohol, you can die. If you have too much caffeine all at once, you can die. But when youre getting these substances at much lower doses, the idea is that your body repairs itself. Its not necessarily the case that getting something in small amounts will have the same effect as getting something in dump truck amounts.

Aubrey: Yeah, its interesting. As youre talking about this, Im just thinking about how much of our health and wellness conversations and conversations about specific ingredients or components of food are really stuck in this kind of binary mode that youre describing, which is just like, “Any amount of this equals cancer.”

Michael: Right. I actually read a really interesting content analysis of the 297 articles published about this in 1989, which is just a fucking huge number of articles. What it said is that very few of the articles told people this, that its like the EPA is looking at it, they did more studies. The EPA then forms a panel, and the EPA is like, “We dont know that this data is all that good, but were going to now order the manufacturer of Alar to perform more tests.” But two weeks before the 60 Minutes report, the EPA had ordered the manufacturer to pull it off the market. The whole report coming from this environmental NGO is about like, “You should be phasing it out faster.”

Its difficult to see this as a total breakdown of government regulators when its like, “No, they looked at the data, they ordered the manufacturer to do more tests, and they were like, Hey, lets be careful and pull this off the market.” Its already happening.

Aubrey: Does that get covered in the 60 Minutes story?

Michael: Yeah, they mention it. But with these things, its all about the emphasis. Oftentimes, the facts are in there. If you look at each sentence of the report in this very like, “What is the information that it contains?” But its very easy for your eyes and your ears to skip over this stuff depending on what the emphasis is. The emphasis in the report is, “Kids are eating this and this causes cancer, and kids could get cancer anytime.”

Aubrey: Everything that comes after an apple morphs into a skull and crossbones.

Michael: Yeah, exactly. This is the number one thing youre going to take away from that.

Aubrey: That graphic should have been the grounds for their lawsuit. [laughs]

Michael: Yeah, no shit. But then, the other thing that the lawsuit mentions is that not only does the segment not really prove that this causes cancer in kids, it doesnt even really prove that this causes cancer in humans. This is literally based on these two studies from the 1970s of rats and hamsters. Another thing I thought was fairly irresponsible about the segment is that by 1989, Alar had been on the market for almost 20 years. Have the kinds of cancers that we would predict gone up in the population during that time? If not, I feel like thats something to at least tell the audience at some point.

Aubrey: Right. And also, could you compare it to other places that dont use this substance?

Michael: Right.

Aubrey: Theres a bunch of ways that you could look at it. All of them imperfect, but could point you in a direction or not.

Michael: Right. Another thing that they didnt really mention is that this pesticide was already basically being phased out. So, the EPA estimated that it was only being used on about 5% of apples-

Aubrey: Oh, wow.

Michael: -by the time this report came out. The environmental NGO says that its closer to 30%. The industry says its 10%. Its not like every single apple you buy is going to be doused with this pesticide.

Aubrey: 5% to 10% to 30% of apples? Thats a big range.

Michael: Huge range. I know.

Aubrey: But its also not the same thing as every apple might be poison for your child.

Michael: And also, we know this now, we didnt know this then, but Alar has been looked at by a bunch of other countries. The UN and the WHO have both said that its not a carcinogen, and theres been more tests now.

Aubrey: What?

Michael: Yeah, its not clear that this actually is dangerous. I dont really fucking care that the US banned a pesticide needlessly. Just like the McDonalds thing in last episode. Im like, “I dont-

Aubrey: Who cares?

Michael: -weep over the fate of a fucking pesticide company.”

Aubrey: Wont someone think of the shareholders?

Michael: Yeah, exactly.

Aubrey: No, were fine.

Michael: But then the real legacy of this case is not about Alar. Its about what happens to libel laws. So, the apple growers sue CBS for libel, and the case is thrown out, because they cant prove that any of these claims are false. They say, “Well, we know that Alar causes cancer. Well, theres some evidence that its a carcinogen in rats.” That is a factual statement, or at least close enough to a factual statement that 60 Minutes is justified in saying it.

Aubrey: Sure. And also, when you pair it with B-roll of children eating apples, its also leading you in a direction. So, its factually correct, but also omitting important information.

Michael: Well, this is the central case of the apple growers, is they basically say that yeah, theres no specifically false claim at the sentence level in this segment, but the overall impression that it leaves you with is that apples are fucking dangerous to eat. This is an actual thing in libel law. Its called the substantial truth requirement. The idea is that you cant go after a news organization for one false claim in a longer segment or book or article whose overall message is not libelous.

But the problem is that because they sued in Washington, we dont have the substantial truth requirement. You have to prove that the actual sentence level claims were false. So, again, I have some sympathy with the apple growers, because basically theres this TV show that is the number one most watched TV show at the time that is saying, “Your fucking product is poison.”

Aubrey: Yeah, to children.

Michael: To children.

Aubrey: Yeah.

Michael: A lot of apple growers werent even using fucking Alar. Theyre like, “Well, nobodys buying my product either even though I already phased out this fucking pesticide.” It is pretty fucked up and unfair. On the other hand, when it comes to laws that are governing things like food safety, you want to err on the side of being able to warn people that a product might be dangerous. Theres this balance here between protecting the interests of an industry and protecting free speech. When does the evidence rise to the point where you can say, “Hey, we think this product causes cancer”? When should the media be able to do that?

Aubrey: Were also just in weird hinky territory, where claims about free speech are almost always about white supremacy or-

Michael: Yeah, super bad faith.

Aubrey: -saying and doing horrific things to considerably less power. Even though free speech is, you know, generally a good thing.

Michael: I like it.

Aubrey: It has been hijacked.

Michael: Yeah.

Aubrey: But conceptually and legally, if were talking about interpretations of the First Amendment, I could absolutely see that there would be a ton of tensions in that.

Michael: Exactly. This is a tension that has existed since the beginning of the journalism industry. So, this case is thrown out mostly because in America, its just very difficult for public figures and for companies to win defamation lawsuits. And to understand what happens next, we have to talk about the ins and outs of libel law, which I think is actually pretty interesting.

Aubrey: I know that you know an attorney, [Michael laughs] and I suspect that you talk to an attorney about this. A charming little attorney. Yes.

Michael: Yeah. I host a podcast with a fat lady and a little tiny lawyer. Those are my jobs.

Aubrey: Thats his job, and thats my job. My job is fat lady.

Michael: [laughs] So, yeah, how much do you know about libel law, Aubrey?

Aubrey: My greatest fear is that I learn more about [unintelligible [00:21:07]

Michael: That you learn it against your will. Shit.

Aubrey: From this Goddamn show. Yes.

Michael: [laughs] So, basically, America is famous at this point for having very strong libel laws. Its really hard to win a libel case in America. One of the reasons for that is theres a totally different standard of libel protections for public figures. If youre just a random person and a newspaper prints, “Youre cheating on your wife,” or something, thats pretty fucked up, because its not a matter of public concern, and its much easier to win a libel lawsuit. But public figures have much more ability to respond than a private figure does.

So, if we say on this show that Gwyneth Paltrow is faking her organic certification, “Her products are from sweatshops,” or something, shes a massive celebrity. She can go on Instagram, she can call a press conference, she can have a video produced about how much we suck in her organic practices. The state doesnt really need to get involved. So, the first bar that public figures or companies have to clear to win a libel lawsuit is, it has to be about a specific individual. So, if somebody says on their podcast that, “Lady podcasters in Portland are the worst,” you cant sue for that.

Aubrey: Ive tried, Michael.

Michael: I know.

Michael: What are your legal updates, Aubrey?

Aubrey: I sued McDonalds for the coffee not being hot enough.

Michael: Yeah.

Michael: So, the other bar to clear is that libel has to be a fact, not an opinion. So, if we say on the show, “Gwyneth Paltrow sucks, and you should never order anything from Goop again,” thats not libel because thats just our opinion, and opinions are protected by the First Amendment. So, even if were going out of our way to put her out of business, thats not libel. Unless were saying, “Gwyneth Paltrow is an axe murderer and shes murdered 14 people and shes been convicted in nine states.”

Aubrey: Hang on. Im just lifting that out of context.

Michael: Yeah, exactly.

Aubrey: And sent to Goop.

Michael: The funniest case that I came across, this is how this gets entrenched in law is, you know the speaker company, Bose?

Aubrey: Yeah.

Michael: They tried to sue Consumer Reports for publishing a bad review.

Michael: This was in 1984. Consumer Reports said, “Their speakers seemed to grow gigantic proportions and tended to wander about the room,” which isnt even that sick of a burn?

Aubrey: Yeah.

Michael: But Bose was like, “This shall not stand.”

Aubrey: [laughs]

Michael: Then, the court was like, “You got to be fucking kidding me. Youve got to be able to say that these speakers suck.”

Aubrey: Im going to start suing people who leave lukewarm reviews of my book.

Michael: Yeah, exactly.

Aubrey: I appreciated the first half. The second half was not totally for me, but [onomatopoeia], lawsuit.

Michael: Yeah, it was totally for you. God damn it.

Aubrey: [laughs]

Michael: Another thing thats really interesting is, I think a lot of the public thinks that libel law is really about youve made a false claim about somebody. But in the United States, theres all kinds of false claims that are actually protected. Theres an infinite number of false claims that you can publish about somebody. Somebody could publish that, “Michael Hobbes is right-handed.” Thats a false claim, but its not actionable as libel, because it doesnt damage my reputation.

Aubrey: Left hand hive, rise up. [laughs]

Michael and Aubrey: Yeah.

Michael: Its actually very interesting how few libel trials actually hinge on whether or not the claims were true. A lot of libel trials hinge on whether it was the kind of false claim that its okay to make. So, the reason for this balancing act in the law is that journalism is kind of messy. If youre a journalist acting in good faith, youre going to get tips. And sometimes, those tips are about urgent issues. If you get a tip that, “Okay, this pizzeria is poisoning people, and theres been 75 cases of food poisoning,” and you have some reason to think that is accurate, youve reached out to the pizza place, youre actually allowed to print that as long as youve done your due diligence.

For a public figure to win a libel lawsuit against a false claim, the bar they have to reach is extremely high. So, you have to prove that the journalist was acting with whats called actual malice.

Aubrey: Yeah. You dont want any of that fake ass malice.

Michael: Yeah, exactly. The real shit. The good malice.

Aubrey: Real malice.

Michael: It means that not only is the claim that we made about Gwyneth Paltrow false, but we knew it was false or we just had a completely reckless disregard for whether it was false. “I saw graffiti on a trash can that said, Gwyneth Paltrow has murdered a bunch of people. And so, I put it on my podcast.” No, thats not real. The whole idea is that, in a robust, free speech, free media environment, false claims are going to get published. Things are going to fall through the cracks. We cant have a legal system that protects fucking celebrities from every single false claim. We have to be able to err on the side of informing the public about important issues rather than erring on the side of, “No one should hurt Gwyneth Paltrows feelings.”

Aubrey: Im really delighted, I have to say, that Gwyneth Paltrow is your example of a public figure, and murdering people is your example of a false claim. [laughs]

Michael: Im trying not to get sued, because Im using an example thats so outlandish that no one is going to think that this is true. Also, this is actually a super bad example because there are certain claims about individuals that are always libelous, and one of them is that somebody has committed a crime. So, Im technically libeling Gwyneth Paltrow by saying that she murdered a bunch of people with an axe.

Aubrey: Youre making my greatest fear come true. Thank you.

Michael: Yeah, exactly. Its happening. Sorry.

Aubrey: [laughs]

Michael: Basically, these are all of the reasons why these apple manufacturers, growers are really mad about the fact that they cant win this case, because to a normal person, I think you look at this and youre like, “Okay, these guys said this thing that was on kind of dubious grounds. They destroyed our industry. And then, when we try to sue them, it doesnt go anywhere, because we cant prove that they acted with malice.”

Aubrey: Yeah.

Michael: So, in 1992, after this case is thrown out, the agricultural producers, not just the apple people, but the everything people, start lobbying state governments to pass special laws to protect agricultural industries from libelous claims.

Aubrey: Boy, Ill tell you what, for every wacky news story, there is some extremely reactionary set of state-level policies. Its really something.

Michael: Exactly. Some fucking nightmare epilogue that no normal person is paying attention to. So, these laws go by various names. The official name or the one that the media uses the most is veggie libel laws, but people also refer to them as banana bills or sirloin slander, I think [unintelligible [00:28:15]

Aubrey: [laughs]

Michael: Thats because its a lot of like meat producers.

Aubrey: Sirloin Slander is an amazing name for a Drag King.

Michael: [laughs]

Aubrey: Thats a free one.

Michael: So, the logic that the agricultural producers use is that theres a set of libel laws were already protected by ordinary libel laws. Those work for Gwyneth Paltrow, because somebody said something mean about her, and she engages in the debate, and she holds a press conference. And six months later, her reputation is back where it was. That works for ordinary public figures. But our products are perishable. So, if we get libeled right before a harvest, by the time the record is corrected, weve lost hundreds of millions of dollars, and were now vulnerable to this. So, we need an extra special set of protections. So, in the first years of the 1990s, 13 states pass veggie libel laws specifically to protect agricultural producers from defamatory claims. Im not going to go through each of these laws individually because they differ in the specifics, but every single one of them has a far lower standard of evidence than the existing libel laws.

So, the first modification is the veggie libel laws get rid of the actual malice standard. A lot of them just prohibit journalists from making a false claim, which seems reasonable like, “Well, journalists shouldnt publish false claims.” But the problem with the way that a lot of these laws are worded is that its not clear how you would determine whether something is false. Ive read a lot of legal analyses of these laws. A lot of them point out the fact that this would prohibit publishing reports about how cigarettes cause cancer in the 1940s and 1950s, because we didnt know that yet. The other big thing about this is that, right now, if Gwyneth Paltrow sues us for libel, she has to prove that our claims were false. Under the veggie libel laws, we would have to prove that theyre true.

Aubrey: Whoa.

Michael: So, the burden of proof shifts from the public figure with all the power and money that go along with that to the journalists. The other thing that these laws do is they allow anyone to sue. So, if youre growing apples, if youre processing apples, if youre shipping apples, if youre wholesaling apples, anybody, which basically means that it would be really easy to venue shop, because– I think its Ohio has one of the worst ones, where its a criminal act to libel any agricultural producer. If we say on the show like, “Ooh, broccoli is full of chemicals,” or something, then some random fucking person in Ohio could sue us under the most strict version of these laws, and we could go to jail.

Aubrey: Boy, a paradise for the incompetent, except, [Michael laughs] unless youre going after veggies.

Michael: That was extremely libelous, Aubrey.

Aubrey: [laughs]

Michael: Please save your cease-and-desist orders.

Aubrey: Thats a quote from a thing.

Michael: Yeah, exactly. Thats on our T-shirt store. Dont worry about it.

Aubrey: Were just libeling you in merch.

Michael: Yes.

Michael: So, a lot of these laws are just straightforwardly unconstitutional. But of course, because kind of theyre under the radar, you dont really notice 13 states passing these obscure libel laws. The public is not really paying very much attention to this but its a little weird that theres this special set of defamation laws for farmers. Why shouldnt the auto industry get this? The aviation industry is also really important to Washington State. Should they just have their own fucking set of laws? The problem here is that politicians have an incentive to protect their industries. The preamble to a lot of these statutes is, “The agriculture industry contributes 40% of GDP to Ohio,” da, da, da. If we libel Gwyneth Paltrow and shes mad, that doesnt really affect the economy of California. But if we libel almond producers, then all of a sudden, tax revenue goes down.

Aubrey: Michael, I think youre underestimating how much Gavin Newsom loves Goop.

Michael: Thats true. [laughs] Ive seen his skin. Its glowing.

Aubrey: [laughs]

Michael: Yes. So, all of this brings us finally to Oprah Winfrey and April 16th, 1996.

Aubrey: A date which will live in infamy.

Michael: Kind of.

Aubrey: What happened on April 16th?

Michael: Oprah did an episode called Dangerous Foods in which she talked about the rapidly [mispronounces] metastasizing-

Aubrey: [laughs]

Michael: -mad cow disease, Aubrey.

Aubrey: Leave it in.

Michael: So, we have to set the scene of 1996. This is Oprah. I dont know if its at the height of her powers, but this is the moment when people are realizing how much power Oprah has.

Aubrey: It sounds like we are post book club, but pre remember your spirit.

Michael: Yeah, I think she hasnt done the turn into more highbrow stuff. Theres a really interesting excerpt from Kitty Kelleys biography of Oprah, where she talks about this moment where shes straddling these two worlds. Actually, why dont I send this to you?

Aubrey: Okay. “Oprah was at the top of her game in 1996 making more than $97 million a year and stacking up Daytime Emmys like firewood. She ruled talk show television then, because she gave her viewers compulsively watchable programming. It was not all celebrities all the time, but a combination of pop culture and dramatic first-person stories of abuse and survival, intermixed with books, movies, music videos, beauty makeovers, fad diets, and psychics, plus pressing issues of the day.” Yeah, that is absolutely the Oprah of my adolescence.

Michael: I looked up a bunch of old Oprah episodes that have ended up on YouTube from this era. The mix is incredible. So, one of them is called “wife comes face to face with husbands secret second family.”

Aubrey: Holy shit.

Michael: Maury Povich. Theres one called “The 2-Headed Baby Miracle.”

Aubrey: Bat Boy Escapes from Chicago lab. [laughs]

Michael: Yeah. Its also like real tabloid stuff. That ones from 2003, which is pretty bad. But then, theres an interview with the cast of Friends. Theres an interview and a performance with Prince. Theres something called spring training, where its like how to exercise and lose weight for spring. Theres a reunion of All My Children, which is very funny to think about how much daytime TV was a big deal back then. Shes also starting to move into this inspiration porn thing. So, she has an episode called Bouncing Back from Tragedy. Its just like people who something bad happened to them and now theyre fine. The unifying theme is appealing to your most prurient interests. Its like, “Heres a bunch of weirdos and a bunch of celebrities and how to lose weight.”

Aubrey: Yeah.

Michael: Its like, “Yeah, just the worst parts of myself.” [laughs]

Aubrey: Totally. And because Oprah was doing not none, but less of the Maury Povich, Jenny Jones stuff, she was seen as a cut above.

Michael: Oh, yeah.

Aubrey: Because she would talk about things and be like, “This diet works because of science.” And people would be like, “This talk show mentioned science.”

Michael: Yeah. And also, shes big enough that she can get big celebrity guests too.

Aubrey: Absolutely.

Michael: So, we are going to dive into the mad cow situation much more deeply next episode.

Aubrey: Whoa.

Michael: But what do you know about mad cow disease and the whole outbreak and panic in 1996?

Aubrey: I remember that I was 13 and I kept hearing jokes about it.

Michael: Yeah, Jay Leno.

Aubrey: I dont really know anything about mad cow. I remember that it was a huge freak out. Its similar to the E. coli outbreaks at Jack in the Box, and Sizzler, and all of those. I was aware ambiently in the way that a kid is aware ambiently that this thing is happening and it seems scary and adults seem freaked out. But I didnt really know anything about it, and I havent gone back and learned about it.

Michael: The mad cow panic is one of the few things that Ive looked into for this show, where the more details you get about it, youre like, “Oh, it was a good idea to panic about this.”

Aubrey: Oh.

Michael: Its genuinely fucking terrifying. So, its something called a prion, which is your proteins are folding in your brain, and its like a little error that gets folded in, and then the error sort of copies itself, and just folds and folds and folds. And over time, it causes literal fucking holes in your brain.

Aubrey: Oh, so were in like syphilis territory.

Michael: And the scariest thing about the mad cow stuff is that theres this years long incubation period where theres no symptoms and theres no test for it. So, when cows get mad cow, its like four years of just totally normal cow, and then they start getting these really fucked up symptoms, like theyre trembling, they fall asleep on their feet, they rub themselves against the wall. I dont know if you ever saw that footage as a kid of a cow stumbling and trying to walk. Its really grim.

So, theres this long incubation period followed by mad cow disease in cows. And then humans, its the same thing. It can be, like, seven years that its just happening in your brain. No symptoms and no way to fucking know if its happening to you. Once you start getting mad cow as a human, its like your brain gets foggy, you start losing your short-term memory, you fall down, youre super fatigued. Once people get it, theres a 100% fatality rate. You just die within a year.

Aubrey: Holy shit.

Michael: Then, I read three books on mad cow disease. Im going to bore you to fucking tears next episode with the detail that were going to get into.

Aubrey: “I will bore you to tears in the next episode,” is the single greatest cliffhanger we will ever have on the show. [laughs]

Michael: Threat/promise. Yes.

Aubrey: I love it so much.

Michael: Its going to suck shit. Two hours long.

Aubrey: [laughs]

Michael: What I remember about this time is one of my brothers stoner friends telling me that, “Its possible that literally everybody has this because of the long incubation period.”

Aubrey: Oh, my God.

Michael: It could have been the case that 50% of the population has fucking mad cow and we wont know for like 10 more years.

Aubrey: Yeah, this is a more grounded version of my childhood fear, which was the thing about swallowing a watermelon seed and then a watermelon growing inside you.

Michael: [laughs] You think youre pregnant, but its not kicking.

Aubrey: Yeah. [laughs]

Michael: “Oh, my God, its a watermelon.”

Aubrey: And Im nine. Yeah. [laughs]

Michael: Yeah, its perfectly round. So, Oprahs episode is in April of 1996. In March of 1996, Britain announces that theres been at least 10 people whove been infected with mad cow. At the time, no one really knew anything. This was the first that anyone in America had heard about mad cow. Theres all kinds of panic going on mostly because of this incubation period. Its like, “Well, how many fucking cows have it in America? How many fucking people have it?” There were projections coming out of the UK that up to like 130,000 people were going to die.

Aubrey: Wow.

Michael: Also, America has a much larger beef industry per capita than Britain, and we eat a lot more beef than Britons. Just like all of the elements coming together for just a total freak out. So, on April 16th, Oprah does an episode called Dangerous Food. One of my greatest frustrations and obsessions in the last three weeks that Ive been researching this is I could not find this fucking segment. It does not exist on YouTube, Vimeo, or the sketchy Chinese websites that are streaming episodes of Seinfeld. I could not get a transcript of it. The transcript was originally in the court documents, but its now been redacted, which I think is really weird.

Aubrey: Huh, that is really weird.

Michael: So, I had to piece together what was said in this segment from various court documents. There were two or three different biographies I had to look at. Theyre basically talking about like, “Well, this mad cow disease thing is a huge fucking deal in Britain. Everyones losing their mind. Is this a risk in America? How worried should we be about this?” So, they have three panelists. The first is a guy named William Houston, who is with the USDA, and hes the countrys leading expert on mad cow disease. The second guy they have is named Gary Weber. Hes from the National Cattlemens Beef Association. So, hes like the beef guy.

And then, the third guest is a guy named Howard Lyman. He is like a third-generation rancher. He grew up on a cattle ranch and took it over from his folks. In the, I believe, 1970s, he had two big scares that his brother died of cancer and then he was diagnosed with cancer. He linked this back to his diet and specifically to his consumption of animal products. After he recovered from cancer, he sold the farm and became a super hardcore animal rights activist. Hes been involved in all kinds of environmental and animal rights charities throughout the years. In 1996, hes ambassador, like something VP, something, something for the Humane Society. And so, hes the third guest.

So, they have the academic guy, the beef guy, and the animal rights guy on this Oprah panel. She goes to the beef guy, and the beef guy is like, “Well, we actually have a lot of safeguards in place in America, and our system of beef is very different than it is in Britain.” And then, she goes to the academic guy and hes like, “Yep, our system is very different. Were actually not very worried about this as a risk in America.”

And then, she goes to Howard Lyman. Howard Lyman says that the way that mad cow spreads is through cows eating the brains of other cows. This is the way these little prion error messages spread between animals, is they infect brains and glands and spinal stuff. When other members of the same species eat that stuff of their own kind, they also get the little error folding. So, we are going to read the exchange that follows.

Aubrey: Oh, my God.

Michael: This is as close as I could come to piecing together the transcript. This is from a couple of different sources, but as far as I can tell, this is what was said afterwards.

Aubrey: I love this level of sleuthing.

Michael: Do you want to be Oprah, or do you want to be Howard?

Aubrey: Ooh, Ill be Howard.

Michael: You want to be Howard? Okay. Ill send this to you. I hope this comes through. Its like a massive brick.

Aubrey: This might actually have graduated from brick to two by four.

Michael: Yeah. [laughs]

Aubrey: Okay. “What it comes down to is about half of the slaughter of animals is non-sellable to humans. They either have to pay to put it into the dump or they sell it for feed. So, they grind it up, turn it into something that looks like brown sugar, add to it all of the animals that died unexpectedly, all of the road kills and the euthanized animals, add it to them, grind it up, and feed it back to other animals. Its about as simple as it can be. We are doing something to an animal that was never intended to be done.”

Michael: “You said this disease could make AIDS look like the common cold?”

Aubrey: “Absolutely.”

Michael: “Thats an extreme statement, you know?”

Aubrey: “Absolutely. And what were looking at right now is were following exactly the same path that they followed in England 10 years of dealing with it as public relations rather than doing something substantial about it. 100,000 cows per year in the United States are fine at night, dead in the morning. The majority of those cows are rounded up, ground up, fed back to other cows. If only one of them has mad cow disease, it has the potential to affect thousands. Remember, today, 14% of all cows, by volume, are ground up turned into feed and fed back to other animals.”

Michael: “But cows are herbivores. They shouldnt be eating other cows.”

Aubrey: “Thats exactly right. And what we should be doing is exactly what nature says. We should have them eating grass, not other cows. Weve not only turned them into carnivores, weve turned them into cannibals.”

Michael: “Now, doesnt that concern you all a little bit right here hearing that? It has just stopped me cold from eating another burger. Im stopped.”

Aubrey: Footage not found of Oprah never eating another burger. You know what I mean?

Michael: She does five shows a week. Theyre not meant to have a lasting impact on you, emotionally.

Aubrey: Theyre not meant to be read out as from court transcripts in 2023?

Michael: Yeah.

Aubrey: Yeah. [laughs]

Michael: But also, I can see how people freaked out about this. What this dude is saying is like, “Were eating fucking cow brains and cows are eating fucking cow brains.”

Aubrey: Well, even with the gross factor, I think there is a pretty deep and visceral revulsion at cannibalism for most folks So, even just conceptually, that thing– I will say, one of my longest standing pet peeves is there is a barbecue restaurant that I drive by frequently, and their mascot is a pig serving barbecue.

Michael: Oh, yeah.

Aubrey: That is dark.

Michael: Thats really dark. Yeah, and sometimes the animated M&Ms eat M&Ms and youre like, “Oh, youre little friends.”

Aubrey: [laughs] Yeah. Look, as long as the M&Ms that theyre eating are appropriately feminine, its fine.

Michael: Yeah. [laughs] Okay, so Im sending you another brick.

Aubrey: Okay.

Michael: This is as close as I could come to understanding what it felt like to watch this segment.

Aubrey: Got you.

Michael: So, this involves Howard Lyman, the animal rights guy, and also the beef guy, and Oprah.

Aubrey: Okay.

Michael: So, why dont you also play the beef guy?

Aubrey: Im the beef guy.

Michael: As far as I could tell, this comes after the previous segment where hes like, “Weve turned them into cannibals.” And then, Oprah turns to the beef guy and shes like, “Is this true? Are you feeding cow brains to other cows?”

Aubrey: “Let me clarify that. There is a reason to be concerned. Weve learned from the tragedy in Great Britain and made a decision here. We started taking initiatives 10 years ago to make sure this never happened here. Number one, we do not have mad cow disease in this country, and we have a 10-year history of surveillance to document that based on science. Also, we have not imported any beef into this country since 1985 from Great Britain.”

Michael: “Are we feeding cattle to cattle?”

Aubrey: “There is a limited amount of that done in the United States.”

Michael: The audience groaned and booed.

Aubrey: “Hang on just a second now. The Food and Drug Administration-“

Michael: “I have to just tell you thats alarming to me.” This is Oprah interrupting him.

Michael: “Now, keep in mind that before you view the ruminant animal, the cow, as simply vegetarian, remember that they drink milk.”

Michael: More groans and boos.

Aubrey: “Im saying we do not have the disease here. Weve got 10 years of data, the best scientists in the world who are looking for this, over 250 trained technicians and veterinarians around the country. Everyones watching for this.”

Michael: So, now, Howard Lyman jumps in.

Aubrey: “The same thing that weve heard here today is exactly what was heard for 10 years in England. Not to worry, were on top of this. If we continue to do what were doing, feeding animals to animals, I believe we are going to be in exactly the same place. Today, we could do exactly what the English did and cease feeding cows to cows. Why in the world are we not doing that? Why are we skating around this and continuing to do it when everybody sitting here knows that would be the safest thing to do. Why is it? Why is it? Because we have the greedy that are getting the ear of government instead of the needy, and thats exactly why were doing it.”

Michael: Audience applause. You really inhabited Howard there, Aubrey.

Aubrey: Hes a real orator, that guy.

Michael: So, you can see how Howard Lyman is just a way better communicator than the beef guy. I think the audience is also primed to not trust a dude from the Cattlemens Association, which, yes, I agree completely.

Aubrey: Right.

Michael: You can see whats happening here is that theyre not really focusing on the specific risks of mad cow. Theyre basically zeroing in on like, “This things fucking gross. Theyre grinding up cows and feeding them to other cows. Most people do not know that this is happening routinely in the food supply.”

Aubrey: Yeah.

Michael: So, Oprah seizes on this thing that is objectively fucking gross and is like, “Are they feeding cows to cows or not?” This guy is basically called upon to be like, “Yeah, but weve been doing that for ages, and we havent had mad cow.” This is fucking gross, but you just dont really want to think about where your beef comes from, and theres a lot of fucking gross shit that goes on behind the scenes.

Aubrey: Well, and its also worth thinking about what everyone is there to do. Howard Lyman is there to make extremely big claims to get folks further and further on board with not eating animals anymore. Beef guy is there to just defend his industry, which never feels great. Thats never a welcome TV presence. And Oprah, the moderator of this conversation, is there to make a TV show.

Michael: This is an utterly abysmal way to inform the public. What youve basically got is two interested actors. Youve got an animal rights activist and a beef activist, neither one of whom have any incentive to give you a holistic understanding of what the fuck is going on in Britain and whether the same thing could happen here. Youve basically got two people who are leaning toward hyperbole, and then Oprah is in the middle pretending to be like a moderate voice somewhere in between. That is a shitty, unbelievably shitty way to find out the truth. But its a great way to have a compelling TV talk show, because youve got conflict. People like watching conflict. People like tension. So, youve got these great fireworks between the beef guy being like, “You know it, Howard. Youre lying.” Hes like, “Youre the greedy versus the needy.”

Aubrey: Totally. And then, the beef guy responds with, “Heres our staff structure and how many people weve assigned to the problem.” And youre like, “Buddy.”

Michael: Yeah, and the milk. He mentions milk for no reason.

Aubrey: “Theyre not vegetarian. They drink milk.” What?

Michael: Again, whether or not there are specific false claims within this, the obvious takeaway that any reasonable person would get from this is like, “Well, fuck, dont eat beef.”

Aubrey: Yeah.

Michael: So, this is wild. The next day, cattle prices, the wholesale price of cattle futures or whatever drops by the legal limit. Its illegal for cattle prices to drop by more than a $1.50 per day, and they drop by a $1.50.

Aubrey: What?

Michael: Yeah. Theyre calling it the Oprah crash.

Aubrey: So, if were thinking back to that little checklist for libel laws, theres your demonstrable harm.

Michael: Theres your harm. Exactly.

Aubrey: Thats really significant.

Michael: So, in response, the beef industry loses its fucking mind. They pull a bunch of ads, and they do this huge letter writing campaign about how irresponsible it was of Oprah to publish this segment.

Aubrey: The Cattlemens Association is drunk with power off of their hardcore win with the food pyramid and theyre like, “Whos our next target?” [laughs]

Michael: “We got them to change the design to be unbelievably shitty to make it as ugly as hell.”

Aubrey: [laughs]

Michael: So, this is wild. This doesnt actually come up in the lawsuit all that much, but a week later, Oprah then does a second episode following up where she invites back the beef guy to talk for another 10 or 15 minutes, and like, “Well, you were here last week. Maybe we railroaded you a little bit. Maybe you didnt get to say your piece.” So, she does a whole other segment about like, “Well, whats the beef situation? How much is the mad cow a risk?”

Aubrey: Shes trying to do a make good, huh?

Michael: Yeah.

Aubrey: This seems like either a good faith effort or a damage control thing, but either way giving them more airtime.

Michael: So, she tries to do the correct the record. I think its a much more boring segment, because there arent really any fireworks. This also is not online, but according to descriptions of it, shes again grilling him about, “Well, are they eating other cows? What about the cow brains?” And hes trying to talk about these controls that they have in place for mad cow disease. And shes just fixated on, “This is fucking gross.” Like, “Is this gross thing happening or not?” which it is to her credit.

A month goes by, and on May 28th, 1996, a bunch of Cattlemen Association people, its the Cactus Feeders Inc., which is very confusing because its Cactus and Cattle files a lawsuit against Oprah Winfrey and Howard Lyman in Texas under Texass False Disparagement of Perishable Food Products Act, which is one of the veggie libel laws that was passed in this wave. By far the weirdest fucking thing about the lawsuit, do you want to guess how much they sued her for?

Aubrey: Is it in the billions or the hundreds of millions?

Michael: This is the weirdest thing. Its $12 million.

Aubrey: What?

Michael: Which is nothing for these lawsuits.

Aubrey: Thats so low.

Michael: The apple people sued CBS for $200 million.

Aubrey: Boy, oh boy, oh boy.

Michael: Its actually very interesting that Oprah fought this rather than just paying it. Im glad that she didnt, but she will eventually spend $5 million defending herself from this.

Aubrey: Thats fascinating.

Michael: Before we start to wrap up here, these are the complicated feelings I have about this.

Aubrey: Yes, tell me.

Michael: On the one hand, the Oprah segment was straightforwardly, really fucking irresponsible. We find out through the lawsuit, through the entire discovery process that goes on over the next couple of years, Oprahs team wanted to do a segment on the mad cow panic in the UK. Basically, they called around the CDC and the NIH and a bunch of experts and every single expert was like, “This is not really a risk in the United States for various boring structural reasons.” They were like, “Expert, no. Expert, no. Expert, no. What about this random animal rights activist?” Then, they find Howard Lyman, whos willing to make a bunch of exaggerated and fairly unsubstantiated claims and theyre like, “Okay, great, lets have this guy on.”

Then, not only do they have this guy on as a counterpoint to people that have more expertise in this area, they also edit out a shitload of stuff from the actual expert. So, this USDA expert guy, whos the countrys leading expert on mad cow disease, apparently said a lot of the same things as the beef guy, but they cut him out because theyre like, “Oh, its redundant.” But hes the closest thing you have to a referee whos like, “Ive actually looked into this, and my view is much closer to the cattleman than it is to the animal rights guy.”

Aubrey: Totally. And theres a way to structure that conversation thats like, “Hey, before we dig in on this complicated topic, we wanted to hear from the USDA about what their regulations are around something like this and how theyre enforced.” Its a much cleaner approach, but its also not the best TV necessarily.

Michael: Basically, theyre doing something that we see all the time now where theyre whipping a debate out of something that is not really the consensus of experts. Theres not actually that much debate among experts at the time, because due to the long incubation period of mad cow disease, this condition was discovered in Britain in 1986. So, 10 years have already gone by. The US instituted pretty broad-based testing for mad cow disease of every cow that has symptoms and looks like its tripping balls, they send a piece of its brain to a lab to test it for mad cow, and theyve never found it.

Aubrey: This is like COVID testing rules. Any symptoms, you get tested.

Michael: Then the biggest thing that they didnt really ever communicate to the audience is that mad cow disease is a very British phenomenon. Theres other countries in Europe that have very large cattle sectors that did not have mad cow. Theres something specific about Britain that is causing the outbreak there. A lot of it was that Britain relies on this ground up bone meal stuff way more than America, because America has really, really, really cheap soybeans available. The whole point of grinding up fucking animals and feeding them to animals is to get cheap protein.

We have way cheaper protein available in the United States. To the extent that cattle producers were using ground-up cow brains, they were mostly feeding them to older dairy cows. Mad cow is not transmitted through milk. Its really only transmitted through brain and spine. All the academic reports on this are like, “Could it happen here?” Maybe. But in Britain, due to all of the structures of their cattle sector, its like one case of mad cow becomes 10, becomes 100, and it metastasizes, which I actually managed to say.

Aubrey: Nailed it.

Michael: But in America, its like if we had one case of mad cow, it would have become one other case or like two cases, and were testing for it.

Aubrey: I think the thing thats interesting about this story and this breakdown to me is nobody was making different strategic decisions. There wasnt a regulation breakdown in the UK. There wasnt anyone skirting any laws. There wasnt anyone making laws in bad faith. This was a case of folks working with the resources that were at their disposal, and the protein that was most available in the US had less of a risk of this specific thing. Im always fascinated when we end up with these stories of, nobody necessarily did anything wrong or broke any laws and were still here and thats gnarly.

Michael: I think the place that I landed on this was that it was a bad and irresponsible segment. This is very obviously a frivolous lawsuit. At no point in this segment did Oprah mention Texas beef. She was just talking about beef. And then because these laws allow basically anybody to sue, these two random cattle ranchers from Texas are like, “Im suing you for damages.” And even under Texass veggie libel law, they still have to prove that Oprah and Howard Lyman knew the claims were false and said them anyway.

So, in the filing, they say defendant Lyman is a vegetarian activist and lobbyist with an agenda to wipe out the US beef industry. And that defendant Winfrey intentionally edited from the taped show much of the factual and scientific information that would have calmed the hysteria it knew Lymans false exaggerations would create.

Aubrey: Boy, that part I find unconvincing.

Michael: Yeah.

Aubrey: “If people knew, they wouldnt have freaked out.” Like, No. By the time someone says, “cows are eating cow brains-“

Michael: Yeah, exactly.

Aubrey: -you cant unring that bell, my guy. Theres no amount of context that people are like, “All right, I get it. Cool.”

Michael: Okay. So, now we come to the ending. Not really twist, because you already said that you know about it, but the ending– [crosstalk]

Aubrey: Cameo.

Michael: The ending cameo. Im sending you a photo. It might be sending you the file name rather than the file. I sent you a photo.

Aubrey: Oh, no, I got a photo.

Michael: Okay, good.

Aubrey: Yeah.

Michael: See it? Do you see it?

Aubrey: We have an Oprah Winfrey press conference in front of what looks like a courthouse. Shes talking into the microphones. There is a wall of people behind her.

Michael: Who is in that wall, Aubrey? Whose little bald head and mustachioed little mouth?

Aubrey: Dead center, it is Texass favorite son, Dr. Phil.

Michael: So, this is like the origin story of Dr. Phil. According to Howard Lymans book, he charged them $250,000 to be a court consultant.

Aubrey: Is he a jury consultant?

Michael: Yeah, hes a jury consultant. Thats his first job.

Aubrey: [laughs]

Michael: This is also where he gets his tough talking thing.

Aubrey: Yeah.

Michael: So, as shes preparing for the trial, apparently, Oprah is just rolling her eyes like, “Youve got to be fucking kidding me. Youre suing me over this dumb beef shit?”

Aubrey: Yeah.

Michael: Apparently, Dr. Phil sat her down and was like, “Oprah, if you do not take this trial seriously, the jury is going to know, the country is going to know. If youre rolling your eyes, youre going to fucking lose.”

Aubrey: Well, and it looks like you dont care about the effects of your work is how it plays. You just get to say what you want, and then you get irritated if anybody tries to hold you to account, is the optics of that.

Michael: He also warned her, he said, “If you fight this to the bitter end, the line at the sue Oprah window is going to get a lot shorter.” So, basically, hes like, “If they get you on this, fucking everybodys going to sue you.”

Aubrey: Yeah, absolutely.

Michael: “You run a talk show that is making outlandishly false claims constantly.” [laughs]

Aubrey: Five times a week, youre on the air and youre saying wild stuff. Yeah.

Michael: Youre just saying shit and youre really not vetting– “As we see from the editing and the choice of guests and stuff, youre running a pretty irresponsible ship, Oprah. If you dont fight this, fucking everybodys going to sue you. So, you need to win this to prove the fact that its a huge hassle to sue Oprah.” Then, Ive seen clips on her show where she talks about how we met and stuff like that. Its always like this speech that she references. His kind of tough-talking persona that, of course, has become the fucking odious Dr. Phil that we know now, this all comes out of him being the only person who stands up to Oprah and is like, “Hey, nut up and fucking try to win this lawsuit and take this seriously.”

Aubrey: Nut up.

Michael: I dont know if he said, “Nut up.” Probably not.

Aubrey: [laughs]

Michael: So, this is where were going to leave it for Part 1. Next episode, we are going to determine whether Howard Lymans claims are false by learning a little bit more about the mad cow outbreak and getting to the denouement of Oprahs trial. So, no googling to find out what happened 30 years ago.

Aubrey: I will do no googling. I will mention nothing to my family here. I will go hire a lawyer, because my anxiety is in a real fear pitch at this point. [laughs]

Michael: Youve said some things about Gwyneth today.

Aubrey: [laughs]

[Transcript provided by SpeechDocs Podcast Transcription]

Which celebrity was sued by Texas cattlemen for bad-mouthing beef?

FAQ

Which celebrity was sued by the beef industry and for what reason?

The “Oprah” case

It has just stopped me cold from eating another burger. I’m stopped.” In June 1997, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), citing concerns over a possible outbreak of BSE in the United States, announced a ban on the use of rendered beef and lamb in feed produced for cattle and sheep.

Which talk show host was sued by Texas cattlemen for disparaging beef?

Winfrey’s Texas beef began in April 1996, when her talk show aired an episode on food safety. A segment included discussion of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly known as mad cow disease, which had recently killed cattle in England.

What is the Oprah food lawsuit?

In 1998, television talk-show host Oprah Winfrey and one of her guests, Howard Lyman, were involved in a lawsuit, commonly referred to as the Amarillo, Texas beef trial, surrounding the Texas version of a food libel law known as the False Disparagement of Perishable Food Products Act of 1995.

Why did the Texas cattlemen Sue Mary Winfrey?

Citing those comments, the Texas cattlemen sued Ms. Winfrey in Amarillo, Tex., the heart of the cattle-feed producing industry, saying she had wrongfully defamed American beef and cost the cattle industry millions of dollars.

Did Oprah Winfrey malign Texas’ beef industry?

You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. A jury on Thursday cleared talk show host Oprah Winfrey of maligning Texas’ beef industry, rejecting a high-profile lawsuit by cattlemen who claimed they lost more than $11 million after Winfrey questioned the safety of American meat on her popular TV program.

Why did Texas cattlemen fail?

“However you cut it, the Texas cattlemen have been held to traditional constitutional proofs, and they failed,” said David J. Bederman, an Emory University law professor who tried to overturn Georgia’s food product disparagement law in 1995.

Are there any food-disparagement lawsuits against ABC?

Only a few food-disparagement suits have been filed since the adoption of the laws in the 1990s, the most notable being a 2012 action against the ABC network by Beef Products, Inc. (BPI), a South Dakota-based manufacturer of “lean finely textured beef,” popularly known as “pink slime.”

Can Texas sue Winfrey for ‘baloney’?

While Morales publicly criticized the statements made on Winfrey’s show as “baloney,” he said Texas couldn’t pursue legal action under the law. Members of the Texas cattle industry soon stepped in and filed a lawsuit against Winfrey and others, alleging more than $10 million in damages.

Why was the Amarillo case a’veggie libel case’?

The verdict by the federal jury in Amarillo delighted free speech advocates, who had portrayed the civil case as an important test of “veggie libel laws”–the pro-business statutes enacted by 13 states in recent years to mute criticism of food industry products.