In its May 11 editorial, "Fast Food Needs Rescue, But So Do Other Industries," The Detroit News suggests that broader liability protection for corporations, including the fast food industry, would "reestablish the concept of personal responsibility." But the News fails to address the pervasiveness of corporate irresponsibility and the injury inflicted on consumers as a result of such negligence.
It was not until the tobacco lawsuits of the 1990s that the industry was forced to disclose a history of corporate misconduct dealing with the manipulation of nicotine levels and the covert marketing to children. How ironic that Congress and Michigan Legislature's response to the growing national crisis of obesity, which now threatens to overtake tobacco as the greatest public health disaster of our time, is to immunize the very industry that is responsible for much of the problem.
James Freedland
Center for Justice & Democracy
New York, NY
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