It sounds from this that the bill would attach penalties for making false claims against a product. That's an interesting question. In the U.S., a company that made false advertising claims promoting the health and safety of a product would face serious sanctions, but there is an asymmetry in that activist groups are able to make all manner of unfounded negative claims without penalty. Biotech is just one of the areas of technology affected. So we are told that vaccines cause autism ... power lines cause everything from cancer to baldness to impotence ... and looking back a bit, the reckless speed of the automobile was going to make your blood boil. In addition to the luddite left, the trial lawyers and people looking for shakedown cash pursue these things endlessly.
False claims can create real injuries to producers in the marketplace. If they create a sufficient public scare, they can also deprive society as a whole from a beneficial technology. In principle, I have no problem with false claims being actionable, but how to strike the balance with free speech and advocacy is a tough question.
A similar situation exists with libel. If criminal penalties were attached to libel and we could actually effectively enforce them, a lot of people in the press, and a fair number in politics (especially on the left) would be behind bars. But we've found it virtually impossible to define a practicable standard that gives most victims of libel a real recourse. It's not impossible to win a libel case, but it's so hard that few try. And so, just to take one recent example, Team Obama can accuse Mitt Romney of causing cancers and plant closing decisions that he had nothing to do with, without penalty.
On biotech, just read some of the threads right here at FR. Biotech gets accused of causing every evil under the sun, and Monsanto is demonized endlessly. False claims. India isn't the only place that has this problem.
If GMO Foods were really that good...the makers would have no problem having them labeled. But, the GMOers fight it...everywhere. And, now want laws to stop freedom of speech using Big Government to protect them...
Unfortunately, a few on here believe Big Government is OK is it protects Big Business. It is still Socialism