Ducks Geese and other migratory birds stuff themselves before making the arduous flights they make in flying across continents. They enlarge their livers naturally as energy reserves are built in those enlargements. The HSUSite are trying to turn this natural phenom into another cruelty case against meat. However it seems they aren't being successful in their attempts.


HSUS still "lacks standing" in foie gras lawsuit (Law.com)‏





Law.com
Panel Says Groups Lack Standing To Sue Over Safety of Foie Gras
Joel Stashenko
The American Lawyer
June 22, 2009
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202431648480

A New York state appeals court has blunted another legal attack
against the New York farms that account for the bulk of American foie
gras, this time declining to order the state's agriculture
commissioner to make a declaration about whether commercially produced
duck liver is an adulterated food product that is dangerous to the
public.

The Appellate Division, Third Department, decided that the parties
pursuing the Article 78 proceeding against the agriculture
commissioner on the adulterated food question lack a basis to do so
under §204 of the State Administrative Procedure Act or under
Agriculture and Markets Law §200.

The appellants, which include the U.S. Humane Society, cannot prove an
injury-in-fact that is different than the general public's, as it must
to have standing to sue under Administrative Procedure Act §204, the
court ruled in Matter of Humane Society of the United States v.
Brennan, 506189.

The commissioner also met his obligation to answer the groups' request
for a decision on the adulterated food question in the allotted time
in 2006, the court determined.

"Even assuming petitioners' alleged injuries to be true -- i.e., that
force-feeding ducks causes the birds to become diseased animals,
rendering their harvested livers adulterated food products within the
meaning of Agriculture and Markets Law §200 -- because the
commissioner issued a timely response to their request, they did not
suffer an injury within the zone of interests protected" by §204 of
the Administrative Procedure Act, Justice Bernard J. Malone Jr. wrote
for the unanimous court.

The judge ruled that the Humane Society had failed to sustain other
arguments to establish that it had common-law taxpayer standing to
sue.

The decision affirmed a March 2008 determination by Albany Supreme
Court Justice John C. Egan Jr. Third Department Justices Thomas E.
Mercure, Edward O. Spain, E. Michael Kavanagh and William E. McCarthy
joined in Justice Malone's ruling.

In June 2006, a number of groups, including the Humane Society, the
Government Accountability Product's Food Safety Program and Farm
Sanctuary, formally asked then-state Agriculture Commissioner Patrick
Brennan to declare foie gras an adulterated food product.

Without elaboration, Brennan declined to make such a declaration the same year.

The groups contend the ducks' livers are unnaturally and cruelly
expanded by force-feeding within two weeks of their scheduled
slaughters, maximizing their output of foie gras, which is French for
"fatty liver."

Hudson Valley Foie Gras, the chief object of the appellants'
attention, produces more than 75 percent of the foie gras sold in the
United States. The action before the Third Department also named as
respondents two other Sullivan County farms, La Belle Farm Inc., and
Bella Poultry Inc.

"Adulterated" foods are generally defined as those that are spoiled or
contain unnecessary additives that alter the nature of the food
product.

Carter J. Dillard, an attorney for the Washington, D.C.-based Humane
Society handling the suit, said his group believes the livers of ducks
become diseased during the heightened pre-slaughter feeding process.
He said studies have suggested that human health problems, including
rheumatoid arthritis, have been worsened by eating foie gras.

Dillard said in an interview that the Humane Society is considering an appeal.

"It seems the court really didn't get beyond the basic jurisdictional
issues," Dillard said.

He added that the group was disappointed that despite the hundreds of
pages of documents it filed, the appeals court ruled on a narrow
standing issue and did not get to the merits of adulterated food or
cruelty issues.

"There is to me the question that foie gras is an adulterated food
product and it is diseased," Dillard said. "The courts and the
legislatures just have not caught up with the science on this yet."

Michael Lanefsky, the attorney for the foie gras farms, contended the
appellants know there is no solid scientific evidence that foie gras
is potentially dangerous to humans, yet they continue to make the
allegations in court.

"There is no evidence whatsoever that over 4,500 years of eating foie
gras that anyone has every gotten sick from eating it," Lanefsky said
in an interview.

The Humane Society has also pursued other cases against the Hudson
Valley foie gras farms.

Another Appellate Division panel ruled last year in Matter of Humane
Society of the United States v. Empire State Development Corp., that
the animal-rights' group and other organizations lacked standing to
challenge a $420,000 state economic grant for an expansion of the
Hudson Valley Foie Gras' operation received in 2006 (NYLJ, Aug. 5,
2008).

Another case, Humane Society of United States v. HVFG, LLC,
7:06-cv-06829, challenges Hudson Valley Foie Gras for more than 1,000
violations of the federal Clean Water Act. That action, in the U.S.
District Court for the Southern District, was transferred last week
from Judge Stephen C. Robinson to Judge Harold Baer Jr.

The Department of Agriculture and Markets declined to comment Friday
on the ruling.

awesome.

i thought you were gonna say they mated for life,lol.