Jim Sensenbrenner: “Mr. Chairman, the food industry is our Nation's largest private sector employer, providing jobs to some 12 million…”

“Mr. Chairman, the food industry is our Nation's largest private sector employer, providing jobs to some 12 million Americans. Today, that industry is threatened by an array of legal claims alleging that it should be liable to pay damages for the overconsumption of its legal products by others. H.R. 339, the Personal Responsibility in Food Consumption Act, is designed to foreclose frivolous obesity-related lawsuits against the food industry. From June 20 to the 22nd of last year, personal injury lawyers from across the country gathered at a conference designed to ``encourage and support litigation against the food industry.'' Attendees were required to sign an affidavit in which they agreed to keep the information they learned confidential and to refrain from consulting with or working for the food industry before December 31, 2006, apparently setting a deadline for bringing that vital industry to its knees in a nationally coordinated legal attack. The hatred of some lawyers for the food industry is stark. Ralph Nader, for example, has compared food companies to terrorists, saying that the double cheeseburger is ``a weapon of mass destruction.''”