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Interesting. I don't see any indication in the article that they contacted Soylent first so they could do little things like recall it. I'm sure that a bunch of

Interesting. I don't see any indication in the article that they contacted Soylent first so they could do little things like recall it. I'm sure that a bunch of the Soylent staff are heavy consumers of their product so I suspect they'd take the matter very seriously, and since it's only available from them I'm pretty sure they have contact information for everyone who has it. So I'm going to paraphrase as follows: "As You Sow," a group claiming to be an environmental watchdog, noted a likely safety problem with Soylent and instead of notifying the manufacturer to minimize the harm to consumers chose to file a lawsuit. Edit: less inflammatory paraphrase

Natsu 11y ago
Sometimes there's an 'unclean hands' defense if someone didn't take reasonable steps to minimize the harm they suffered. Courts can be suspicious of plaintiffs who allow harm to accrue in order to sue for more damages. That said, I'm only speaking in general. I don't claim to know anything about the factual background of this particular case.
DanBC 11y ago
> So I'm going to paraphrase as follows: "As You Sow," a group claiming to be an environmental watchdog, noted a likely safety problem with Soylent and instead of notifying the manufacturer to minimize the harm to consumers chose to file a lawsuit. If it was a safety issue they'd have contacted FDA. It's a regulatory compliance issue.
fencepost 11y ago
And I'll note just for future reference this Ars article: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/08/watchdog-group-says-soylents-cadmium-and-lead-levels-violate-ca-law/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/08/watchdog-group-says-s... As a quick summary, the levels they violate are calculated by finding the level at which there's reproductive toxicity in rats, then dividing by 10. Then dividing again by 1000. And, the same group "As You Sow" also has a variety of outstanding complaints against chocolate makers for the same thing. The companies there? Ghirardelli, Godiva, Hershey, Lindt & Sprungli, Mondelez, and Earth Cicrle Organics.

Natsu 11y ago

Sometimes there's an 'unclean hands' defense if someone didn't take reasonable steps to minimize the harm they suffered. Courts can be suspicious of plaintiffs who allow harm to accrue in order to sue for more damages. That said, I'm only speaking in general. I don't claim to know anything about the factual background of this particular case.

DanBC 11y ago

> So I'm going to paraphrase as follows: "As You Sow," a group claiming to be an environmental watchdog, noted a likely safety problem with Soylent and instead of notifying the manufacturer to minimize the harm to consumers chose to file a lawsuit. If it was a safety issue they'd have contacted FDA. It's a regulatory compliance issue.

fencepost 11y ago

And I'll note just for future reference this Ars article: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/08/watchdog-group-says-soylents-cadmium-and-lead-levels-violate-ca-law/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/08/watchdog-group-says-s... As a quick summary, the levels they violate are calculated by finding the level at which there's reproductive toxicity in rats, then dividing by 10. Then dividing again by 1000. And, the same group "As You Sow" also has a variety of outstanding complaints against chocolate makers for the same thing. The companies there? Ghirardelli, Godiva, Hershey, Lindt & Sprungli, Mondelez, and Earth Cicrle Organics.