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Monsanto ordered to pay $289M damages in Roundup cancer trial
- zorkw4rg 8y ago> Mr Johnson's lawyer, Brent Wisner, said the jury's verdict showed that the evidence against the product was "overwhelming". Uhhh to say that is quite the stretch, a jury of layman should judge the scientific consensus? The referenced International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) report is anything but conclusive. That verdict speaks more to the widespread uninformed FUD against GMO. https://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/iarcnews/2016/glyphosate_IARC2016.php https://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/iarcnews/2016/glyphosate...
- killbrad 8y agoThis case and this verdict had nothing to do with GMOs, but ok.
- zorkw4rg 8y ago> This case and this verdict had nothing to do with GMOs Over 80% of genetically modified (GM) crops grown worldwide are engineered to tolerate being sprayed with glyphosate herbicides.
- killbrad 8y agoAnd the case was not for, against, or anything other than casually adjacent to GMOs.
- nyrulez 8y agoHave you read the case? It's not about the crops getting cancer from the herbicide, it's a human being. Also human being is not a GMO product. I don't understand your GMO angle.
- shawnz 8y agoI don't think you made an honest effort to understand the parent's point. They are saying that the jurors might have been biased against Monsanto due to the widespread fear of GMO, and glyphosate being a symbol of that fear.
- ScottBurson 8y agoI can't speak to what was in the jurors' minds, but in my opinion that's backwards: it is concern about glyphosate that is primarily driving fear of GMOs. If we got rid of glyphosate, I for one would not have any problem with the other GMOs I am currently aware of, though I would of course reserve the option of objecting to specific GMOs I might learn about in the future.
- DmenshunlAnlsis 8y agoIt’s important to point out that this case is about Roundup as a whole product, of which less than half is glyphosate, not just glyphosate. Some other posts here go over this in more detail.
- shawnz 8y ago> it is concern about glyphosate that is primarily driving fear of GMOs. In my experience the two most common anti-GMO arguments that I hear are: A) that GMOs can be patented, which creates IP problems when they spread, and B) that somehow human-designed species might be less safe than natural ones due to unintended health consequences of the modifications (not really sure the rationale for that one.)
- saalweachter 8y agoHow do you feel about bt crops?
- lx3459683 8y ago> the scientific consensus Uhh. You mean the lack of consensus. Which is bought and paid for by Monsanto. When it comes to their own products, they outspend any independent studies by orders of magnitude in order to create enough noise for there to be a lack of consensus long enough to make a profit. It's straight out of the tobacco industry playbook.
- atomical 8y agoAll of the independent studies say that Roundup causes cancer? Unscientific assholes downvoted me.
- azinman2 8y agoI think parent meant the ones that say it’s safe.
- 0x4f3759df 8y agoNot sure if it causes cancer or not, but this is like a security hole in the scientific process (ie mostly only the company that produces X will fund studies of X). It's interesting to think security holes more generally - Nick Szabo got me thinking along these lines with his recent pinned tweet: "Giant companies are the security holes of capitalism. The more centralized industries get, the more they attract socialist political activists. The Bolshevik Revolution was a violent version of this vs. railroad stations, newspapers, etc. Now activism is focused on tech giants."
- kennywinker 8y agoThat’s one way to look at it. Big companies attract activists and so are a risk for capitalism. Another way would be that big companies do the most damage to the most people’s lives, and are a risk for humanity.
- ncallaway 8y ago> Uhhh to say that is quite the stretch, a jury of layman should judge the scientific consensus? Who else is going to do it? Either a judge or a jury needs to determine the facts of a case if there's a dispute over the facts.
- tim333 8y agoThe IARC concluded "probably carcinogenic in humans" (category 2A). I'll give you it didn't say "definitely" but still not good.
- killbrad 8y agoI vaguely remember watching an interview with an exec from Monsanto saying RoundUp was perfectly safe, safe enough to drink. Then immediately refusing to drink it when offered, because of course it's poison.
- codetrotter 8y agoFound the story you are thinking of. He wasn’t a Monsanto executive but otherwise correct. https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/6956034 https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/6956034
- killbrad 8y agoWell corrected on his affiliation. Great quote too... Drink RoundUp? "I'm not an idiot".
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- dahdum 8y agoIt’s been shown safe in like a hundred academic studies, though drinking it straight would be ill advised. This judgement is absurd and not scientifically based, luckily the judge will reduce it.
- nyrulez 8y agoThe presecution claims it's not the active ingredient but the whole herbicide that's cancer causing. I think the studies are only on one of the ingredients, not on the whole herbicide? Also, questions of exposure are not addressed here. This person was drenched in it couple of times by accident. If I use rat poison for my job vs have it rubbed or consumed in different doses, results can be quite different. Monsanto claims it's safe in any form and quantity but I don't think that's ever been verified. Level of exposure matters a great deal. There is a reason so many cleaning products have warnings on them about keeping them away from the body (though not for cancer)
- sunseb 8y agoGood.
- jakewins 8y agoHere are transcripts and documents from the case as its progressed of anyone is interested in how the jury was convinced: https://www.baumhedlundlaw.com/toxic-tort-law/monsanto-roundup-lawsuit/dewayne-johnson-v-monsanto-company/ https://www.baumhedlundlaw.com/toxic-tort-law/monsanto-round...
- tptacek 8y agoA useful thing to know about this case is that the plaintiff took pains not to base their case on the carcinogenicity of glyphosate, but rather of Roundup, which is less than half glyphosate. During their opening statement, any time they referenced a study about about glyphosate, they'd say "but remember that study only looked at glyphosate, not Roundup, and as we all know, more than half of Roundup is other stuff". They seemed particularly interested in promoting a theory that the surfectant POEA had something to do with the illness.
- cryoshon 8y agoanother useful thing to know about this case is that monsanto was found to be malicious and intentional with regard to their obfuscation of the issue. pray tell, why would a legitimate scientific inquiry need to be malicious and attempt to obfuscate contradictory research?
- bri3d 8y agoSo Monsanto were selling a dangerous pesticide and intentionally obfuscating its effects. It doesn't matter what part of the composition was toxic in this context. It's not pertinent in the real world whether gyphosate or something else was toxic, the substance in question is Round Up. If you're trying to have a debate about the merits of glyphosate that's a different subject. I think I linked you to the emails from the discovery for this case in another thread, where the scientists involved clearly knew that something was toxic and were scrambling to discover what at the same time that their superiors were scrambling to cover it up.
- tptacek 8y agoSure? My point is just that the case wasn't about glyphosate but about a particular Monsanto product. I sort of don't care what happens to Monsanto.
- bri3d 8y agoPoint taken in that respect, I agree with you that glyphosate hasn't proven to be toxic or mutagenic across quite a lot of research, but if there's no non-toxic delivery vehicle for it it doesn't matter much :)
- vinchuco 8y ago(Redacted)
- tptacek 8y agoThat's Dow Forefront, not Roundup. They aren't the same thing.
- rapnie 8y agoWhether the guilty verdict is ultimately upheld will probably be decided in a higher court. But this company sure has a dubious track record with previous hazardous substances that were in their product line: > The company once manufactured controversial products such as the insecticide DDT, PCBs, Agent Orange and recombinant bovine growth hormone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto
- killbrad 8y agoA toxic company
- PunchTornado 8y agoI don't understand how come those Germans bought this garbage for billions. worst deal ever!
- wslh 8y agoThey are running a big campaign in favour of glyphosate in Reddit. in Argentina at least. Subreddit admins have cobtacted Reddit to suspend the campaign because of false claims going against the rules. The campaign also tricks people because they post links to popular media sites. There is more information about this (in Spanish) here: https://www.reddit.com/r/argentina/comments/95m863/followup_sobre_contenido_promocionado_en/ https://www.reddit.com/r/argentina/comments/95m863/followup_...
- bri3d 8y agoIn fairness, with respect to both this case and the body of research cited in it, glyphosate wasn't the toxic part of Round Up.
- wslh 8y agoI dont have the knowledge about the Round Up and glyphosate details but what I know is that in Argentina there are probed cases of cancer related to Round Up and making a promotional campaign in favour of glyphosate is misleading because people think Round Up is equal to glyphosate.
- colordrops 8y agoThey've been running a campaign on reddit for years. They've even had a subreddit where they coordinated, though I can't recall the name. They scan every subreddit for posts about Monsanto, glyphosate, or GMOs, and attack anyone who posts negatively about them. It was always the same people. Edit: found the subreddit, though it doesn't appear to be as active as it used to be: https://www.reddit.com/r/GMOFacts/ https://www.reddit.com/r/GMOFacts/
- joshmn 8y agoMy mom is another one of these stories. I wish I was exaggerating. I bet there's still Round-up in the her garage. I've spent the last 4 years or my life have been devoted to working so I can afford her treatments and keep her around and happy. Does anyone have any environmental attorneys they've worked with in the past they can recommend?
- RickJWagner 8y agoWow, sorry to hear this. Good luck to you and your mother.
- refurb 8y agoHow do you know Round Up caused her cancer?
- mjburgess 8y agopost hoc ergo propter hoc Background frequency of cancer? Background frequency of owning the most popular weed killer? Expected number of co-incidence?
- refurb 8y agoHow do you do that on an individual level? Even people who smoke that get cancer don’t know whether it was the smoking or not. Plenty of people who don’t smoke get lung cancer too. I’ve never seen a cause of cancer determined beyond population analyses or someone having a specific gene where the rate of cancer development is near 100%. Edit: I should also add extremely rare cancers where people have been exposed to a known causal agent. Like mesothelioma and asbestos.
- mrhappyunhappy 8y agoSorry to hear! I hope you find a mean ass attorney who bites the shit out of Monsanto.
- gowld 8y agoIs your mother a professional gardener? This case is about Roundup causing cancer after professional-scale in-depth exposure for decades, not use in a home garden.
- techrich 8y agothat fine is far to cheap
- trumped 8y agonot if they have to pay it to everyone who can link their cancer to a Monsanto/Bayer product
- techrich 8y agothat fine is far to cheap.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- guilamu 8y agoGlyphosate and Roundup are poisons and Monsanto pretty much knows it. Let me give you a few facts and a bit of history to make my case. There has been a lot of studies about Glyphosate nocivity around the years, but the three most significant are the ones led by the World Health Organization (WHO), the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). The controversy began with a report published by the IARC, an intergovernmental agency under the authority of the WHO of the United Nations. According to this report, the carcinogenicity of Glyphosate is 'probable'. This result was contradicted in November 2015 by a study published by the EFSA. In the face of uncertainty, many Member States refused to renew the authorization of Glyphosate, which was due to expire on 30 June 2016. Pending a new study, this time by the ECHA, the European Commission has only extended the product's registration until 15 December 2017. This new study was published in March 2017. Like EFSA, it rejects the potential carcinogenicity of Glyphosate. However, the potential dangerousness of Glyphosate is not ruled out. But why you asked, my good friend? As many scientists, NGOs and politicians denounce, the IARC, EFSA and ECHA reports are not comparable. While the first one decides on marketed products, such as Roundup, the other two only study Glyphosate alone, without the adjuvants that reinforce its effects. Moreover, when IARC bases its analysis on public studies, EFSA and ECHA work mainly on data directly transmitted by industry, including Monsanto, which would make their conclusions questionable. Yes, two of the most cited studies saying Glyphosate and Roundup are safe use data directly gave by Monsanto itself! And wait, there is more... Christopher Portier, an American scientist, denounces those facts in an open letter sent on 29 May 2017 to Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, and relayed by numerous media. "Both EFSA and ECHA have failed to identify all statistically significant cases of increased cancer incidence in rodent studies," he writes. He also states that, using Monsato own data, he has detected "eight cases of significant increase in the incidence of different tumors", which appear in neither of the two publications. Mr Portier therefore 'respectfully' asks EFSA and ECHA to 'conduct their own analysis' and 'amend their conclusions accordingly'. To base his results, the American researcher relied on data used and published by EFSA, which until now had remained confidential. If you still do not believe that, at least, the precautionary principle should apply here and that both Roundup and Glyphosate should be banned, I don't know what you need. Sources: https://www.touteleurope.eu/actualite/pourquoi-le-Glyphosate-divise-l-europe.html https://www.touteleurope.eu/actualite/pourquoi-le-Glyphosate... https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate
- RickJWagner 8y agoWow. The lawyers have to be celebrating this one.
- softwaredoug 8y agoUgh. I was just about to spray weed killer on some spots in my backyard. :) The rain in the east this year has made it impossible to keep up with weeding!
- barking 8y agoI'm in the same situation, I don't fancy breaking my back weeding by hand or hoe
- dghughes 8y agoHere in eastern Canada weeds are not a problem everything died from lack of water and two months of 30C temperatures.
- gcheong 8y agoAssuming you have a grass lawn, you wouldn’t want to spray roundup on a yard regardless as it would kill your grass also and potentially any non weed plants as well. There are other herbicides that grasses can tolerate though. In any cases, whatever you use is probably not a cause for concern if you’re following the label directions.
- gonvaled 8y agoInteresting that this happens after Monsanto has been acquired by an EU company. How long have cases like this one been dismissed? Are there any examples of US court rulings against big American companies with comparable foreign competitors? I mean, rulings affecting only the American company? (putting it at a disadvantage) The US is becoming a risky market for foreign enterprises, since it has become extremely politicized, like so many corrupt countries around the world.
- sampo 8y agoLast year, a jury in California issued an even larger $417-million verdict for a woman with ovarian cancer. Against Johnson & Johnson, an American pharma company. It was about talcum products, that is baby powder. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_%26_Johnson#Baby_powder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_%26_Johnson#Baby_powde... http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-cancer-talc-verdict-20170821-story.html http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-cancer-talc-verd...
- dbjh 8y agoFor some reason discussions about Roundup and glyphosate tend to focus on their carcinogenic properties. However, if you search the scientific literature it appears a stronger case can be made against either based on their endocrine disruptive properties, which appear quite a bit scarier due to observed effects at very low concentrations (lower than regulatory limits). Since I can't formulate it so succinctly myself and because it answers several questions raised in previous comments here's the abstract of the article "Mesnage, R, Defarge, N, Spiroux de Vendômois, J, Séralini, G.E, Potential toxic effects of glyphosate and its commercial formulations below regulatory limits, Food and Chemical Toxicology (2015), doi: 10.1016/j.fct.2015.08.012.", but you will find similarly unsettling abstracts in many articles about this subject. Abstract Glyphosate-based herbicides (GlyBH), including Roundup, are the most widely used pesticides worldwide. Their uses have increased exponentially since their introduction on the market. Residue levels in food or water, as well as human exposures, are escalating. We have reviewed the toxic effects of GlyBH measured below regulatory limits by evaluating the published literature and regulatory reports. We reveal a coherent body of evidence indicating that GlyBH could be toxic below the regulatory lowest observed adverse effect level for chronic toxic effects. It includes teratogenic, tumorigenic and hepatorenal effects. They could be explained by endocrine disruption and oxidative stress, causing metabolic alterations, depending on dose and exposure time. Some effects were detected in the range of the recommended acceptable daily intake. Toxic effects of commercial formulations can also be explained by GlyBH adjuvants, which have their own toxicity, but also enhance glyphosate toxicity. These challenge the assumption of safety of GlyBH at the levels at which they contaminate food and the environment, albeit these levels may fall below regulatory thresholds. Neurodevelopmental, reproductive, and transgenerational effects of GlyBH must be revisited, since a growing body of knowledge suggests the predominance of endocrine disrupting mechanisms caused by environmentally relevant levels of exposure.
- mrhappyunhappy 8y agoI'm just happy an average Joe could set precedence for more lawsuits against a scumbag evil corporation that does more harm than good on this planet. About time!