Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Seeking notification that would warn customers of popular restaurant chains about the dangers of eating grilled chicken, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine won a partial victory in a California appellate court. The group filed a lawsuit seeking to force McDonald’s, TGIFriday’s, Outback Steakhouse, Chili’s, Chick-Fil-A and Applebee’s to post the following notice: “Warning: Well-cooked chicken, including the chicken served in this restaurant, contains chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer.”
The physicians claim grilled chicken may contain chemicals, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and PhIP, which can cause cancer and birth defects.
They lost their first trial in district court after a judge accepted the restaurants’ argument that the warning was pre-empted by the federal Poultry Products Inspection Act because it conflicted with federal policy.
But the Los Angeles-based Second District Court of Appeal ruled the proposed warning did not conflict with federal policy concerning chicken, although the appellate court stopped short of endorsing the specific warning.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Doctors Win Appeal Over Grilled Chicken Warnings (by Jeff Gorman, Courthouse News Service)
Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine v. McDonald’s (Court of Appeal, Second District, California) (pdf)
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