Lady Gaga threatens to sue breast-milk ice cream maker, calls product ‘unsafe’

Lady Gaga‘s lawyers have given a London-based maker of human breast-milk ice cream until March 9, 2011 to change the name of its specialty ice cream, Baby Gaga, claiming intellectual property violations.

In a cease-and-desist letter sent to The Icecreamists last week, Gaga’s attorneys slammed the breast-milk ice cream maker for capitalizing on Lady Gaga’s popularity to promote its products.

Doesn’t Want Name Associated With Hepatitis Risk

Lady Gaga, through her lawyers, also insists the breast-milk ice cream may be unhealthy because of the risk of hepatitis infection.

“The references you are making to Lady Gaga are thus clearly deliberate and intended to take advantage of her reputation and goodwill,” writes Gaga’s attorneys, the law firm of Mishcon de Reya.

“Associating the Lady Gaga mark with a food product which may be unsafe for human consumption (owing to the risk of it carrying such viruses as hepatitis) is also highly detrimental.”

Ice Cream Being Probed for Health Risks

In response, a defiant Matt O’Connor, owner of The Icecreamists, called out Lady Gaga for her unsanitary donning of a garish meat dress. O’Connor blogged:

For Lady Gaga to accuse us of stealing her image is laughable when you consider how much she has borrowed from popular culture to create her look and music.

She also seems to have forgotten that since the dawn of time the word ‘gaga’ has been one of the first discernible phrases to come from a baby’s mouth. This is why we chose the name.

As for her assertion that our product is distasteful, perhaps she should reflect on her blood-spurting performance at the MTV Video Music Awards, or the fact she wears clothes fabricated from the flesh of dead animals. We have applied to register the trademark Baby Gaga and are confident we’ll secure this.

The Icecreamists, which debuted its Baby Gaga breast-milk ice cream 2 weeks ago, was forced to stop selling the product when London’s Westminster Council confiscated the frozen treat to assess if it meets the country’s health standards.

15 Volunteer to Donate Breast Milk

Some health experts aren’t convinced that human breast milk ice cream could be 100% safe even through pasteurization.

Isis Mullarky, a Virginia Tech dairy scientist, told Discovery Magazine that while pasteurization can kill off harmful bacteria, the risk of a virus infection remains.

“There is an inherent risk in the human consumption of human food — more so than the human consumption of animal food,” she said.

Whereas the viruses that come from cows have the potential to make you sick, the ones from humans are much more likely to be risky, she added.

But Icecreamist owner Matt O’Connor insists his product is safe because the first donor of the breast milk, a 35-year-old mother of one named Victoria Hiley, is a registered blood donor who was examined before donating her milk.

So far, 15 women have volunteered to donate their breast milk to make Baby Gaga ice cream.

The $24 frozen treat is served in a martini glass, with liquid nitrogen poured over it via a syringe and served with a rusk or baby teething biscuit.

Source: Examiner

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