Lumina's legal threats and my about-face

Former journalist here. I spent lots of time in college learning about libel law, and then applying it in my professional life as an editor.<p>One thing about libel that many people don&#x27;t understand is that retraction and editing of the content isn&#x27;t a defense. So where it says &quot;note the libel-friendly phrasing&quot; and &quot;now edited to avoid any possible threats of libel&quot; and &quot;[editor’s note: removed a possibly incorrect claim]&quot; he could still be found guilty of libel if previously published assertions contained non &quot;libel-friendly&quot; phrasing. As long as a defamatory assertion was published <i>at some point</i>, you can still be found guilty of libel.<p>It probably goes without saying, but it is also not a defense to libel to say that you asserted something to be true merely because there was no evidence to the contrary. Absent a contractual or legal obligation, Lumina had no duty to engage with him and answer his questions. So if Lumina can provide evidence that Trevor asserted things that are demonstrably false, and they damaged Lumina&#x27;s business, then Trevor can&#x27;t argue as a defense that he merely had no way of knowing that they were false.<p>Finally, Trevor seems to be saying in his update that he was merely asking questions -- but it&#x27;s possible for a court to find that merely phrasing false, defamatory assertions in the form of a question is not an absolute protection against a libel claim.

I don&#x27;t have any skin in this game but this is confusing to me because in the article that he put back up it (still) says:<p>&gt; Lumina likely aren’t following the Best Practices Guidelines for Probiotics, which require you to state how much of each strain in CFUs is in each batch that you send out on your packaging.<p>But in the new article it says:<p>&gt; Lumina’s manufacturing process follows legally mandated GMP protocols, if not the probiotic trade association’s voluntary best practices.<p>Because that does sound to me like the original claim was wrong?<p>I understand that it&#x27;s weird that it didn&#x27;t get revealed until he was pressed on it but then so is stating that he likely wasn&#x27;t following the best practices, right?<p>Furthermore, the first article doesn&#x27;t mention that it&#x27;s voluntary to follow the best practices guidelines but the second one does. To me that sounds kind of like &quot;okay fine you were right, but it&#x27;s voluntary anyway, so whatever&quot;. Why not mention that in the original claim?<p>In fairness, the original article also has some great points, like the concerns about this particular BCS3L-1 strain that Lumina uses. I wish he had focused more on that.<p>I feel like both of them could have gone about this in a better way.

The writing by Trevor didn&#x27;t make me shy away from Lumina&#x27;s product, I was still quite excited. It would have been good to see scientific debate which could hopefully improve or clarify processes and safety.<p>Lumina&#x27;s court threats, however, would definitely make me shy away. I imagine for myself (and many others) that this would be the case.

Recent and related:<p><i>Reasons not to take Lumina&#x27;s anticavity probiotic</i> - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=40369084">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=40369084</a> - May 2024 (149 comments)

Look into &quot;anti-SLAPP laws&quot;. California has strong enough ones to make people back down from threats like that.

Antibiotic-resistant bugs is a tragedy of the commons. We may need a blanket requirement for FDA approval for products, including probiotics, which create antibiotics.

Not trying to stir anything up, but one can&#x27;t not recognize the disparity of consequences for saying something &quot;false&quot; that &quot;may affect a business&quot; between Trevor and basically any politician who&#x27;s done the same (even without going into good&#x2F;bad intent)

Apparently the former CEO of Reddit, Yishan Wong, is trying it and is an investor? He posted a series of long tweets&#x2F;Xs whatever:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;x.com&#x2F;yishan&#x2F;status&#x2F;1780131189753569310" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;x.com&#x2F;yishan&#x2F;status&#x2F;1780131189753569310</a>

&gt; Dude, if the product wasn&#x27;t safe, I wouldn&#x27;t be using it myself, giving it to my girlfriend, and giving it to my friends.<p>I hope Mr. Silverbrook understands how hollow that reasoning is in the post-OceanGate era.

Regardless of all the &quot;he said, she said&quot;, libel or not libel, email response times, GMP, threats and whatever drama:<p>Is there anyone who is seriously contesting the &quot;it is intended to cure&#x2F;prevent a disease, therefore it is a drug, therefore it needs FDA approval to be sold legally&quot; line of reasoning?<p>More humoristically: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;xkcd.com&#x2F;2475&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;xkcd.com&#x2F;2475&#x2F;</a> and <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;xkcd.com&#x2F;2530&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;xkcd.com&#x2F;2530&#x2F;</a><p>Less humoristically: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Thalidomide" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Thalidomide</a>

<i>spending years in and out of a California courtroom</i><p>Yeah, that&#x27;s totally not something a company that&#x27;s completely full of shit from the top down and bottom up would threaten. Now we can be sure this product functions as advertised.

Now I&#x27;m curious to read the edited sections.

[0]Barbra Streisand Wooo, wooo, wooo-ooh, wooo, wooo, wooo-ooh Wooo, wooo, wooo-ooh, wooo, wooo, wooo<p>Another one of those things that as soon as you start throwing legal threats around it get much much more interesting.<p>[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=9VQdVA2hjsA" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=9VQdVA2hjsA</a>

Great write up. I hadn&#x27;t seen the original post, and now I have. Mutacin and ethanol production does sound problematic. It is a product that I would have tried otherwise.<p>It is also kinda hilarious that the guy is related to the most overrated escort in the Bay Area and is using her to further his product.