I’d be embarrassed to bring a claim like this in court. Clearly some folks have no pride.

A consumer group is demanding that Frito-Lay put warning labels on chips with the fat substitute olestra or face a lawsuit by a Massachusetts woman who says she got stomach cramps and had to use the bathroom quickly after eating the snacks.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest said Wednesday that 30-year-old Lori Perlow of Braintree, Mass., would sue Frito-Lay under a consumer-friendly deceptive-advertising law in the Bay State.

Frito-Lay, a division of PepsiCo Inc., said warning labels are not needed for its Light lines of potato and corn chips.

"It's an extremely safe product, well-tested," said Frito-Lay spokeswoman Aurora Gonzalez. "If the law says we don't have to have (a label), we don't see the need for it either."

The Food and Drug Administration approved olestra, made by Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble Co., in 1996 but required products with the fake fat to carry a label warning that they could cause cramps and diarrhea. The requirement was lifted in 2003 after the agency determined that any ill effects of olestra were mild and rare.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest has campaigned against olestra for many years and opposed the lifting of the warning label. Its director of litigation, Stephen Gardner, accused Frito-Lay of trying to hide the consequences of eating products with olestra despite more than 20,000 consumer complaints.

In a letter to the company Wednesday, Gardner said Perlow experienced cramps and gas for several hours after eating Ruffles Light cheddar potato chips. Perlow said she avoided eating Wow! chips because of olestra but didn't realize Ruffles Light chips also contained the fake fat.

So what we have here is the Center for Pseudo-Science Against the Public Interest using litigation to achieve a regulation that it could not obtain through legislation or other democratic means. Here’s hoping the courts impose serious sanctions on the group, their litigant, and their lawyers.