4 ms·

This is the third jury that looked at all the available evidence and reached the same conclusion. That's 36 people that spent hours carefully looking at the ava

by guelo 7y ago

This is the third jury that looked at all the available evidence and reached the same conclusion. That's 36 people that spent hours carefully looking at the available documents and u̶n̶a̶n̶i̶m̶o̶u̶s̶l̶y̶ agreed that Roundup can cause cancer and that Monsanto covered up the risks. Maybe we shouldn't be so dismissive?

mzs 7y ago
This is a civil case so does not need to be unanimous: >Only one juror did not believe Roundup harmed Alberta but he was in agreement with fellow jurors on negligence and failure to warn. >Three jurors disagreed with the amount of punitive awarded. https://twitter.com/MariaDinzeo/status/1128044694582095873 https://twitter.com/MariaDinzeo/status/1128044694582095873
- staticautomatic 7y ago
  Clarification: It technically didn't need to be unanimous because it had 12 people. Civil juries in California have to be unanimous if they're smaller than a certain size. Civil juries in some other states do have to be unanimous.
Aeolun 7y ago
Honestly, after all the stories I’ve heard of US juries everyone is right to be dismissive. I very much doubt all of them spent hours carefully looking at documents, much less understanding them. It’s not necessarily that I disagree with the verdict, but I strongly dislike jury justice.
nearbuy 7y ago
How do you square this with all the major regulatory organization's experts concluding that there is no evidence glyphosate poses a cancer risk to humans? Organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization, European Commission, Canadian Pest Management Regulatory Agency, Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority and the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment have concluded that there is no evidence that glyphosate poses a carcinogenic or genotoxic risk to humans. The EPA has classified glyphosate as "not likely to be carcinogenic to humans." One international scientific organization, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), affiliated with the WHO, has made claims of carcinogenicity in research reviews; in 2015 the IARC declared glyphosate "probably carcinogenic." [1] [The IARC] dismissed and edited findings from a draft of its review of the weedkiller glyphosate that were at odds with its final conclusion that the chemical probably causes cancer. Reuters found 10 significant changes that were made between the draft chapter on animal studies and the published version of IARC’s glyphosate assessment. In each case, a negative conclusion about glyphosate leading to tumors was either deleted or replaced with a neutral or positive one. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate#Cancer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate#Cancer [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-who-iarc-glyphosate-specialreport/in-glyphosate-review-who-cancer-agency-edited-out-non-carcinogenic-findings-idUSKBN1CO251 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-who-iarc-glyphosate-speci...
- guelo 7y ago
  That Reuters article by Kate Kelland came up during the trial because internal Monsanto emails show that they fed that story to that reporter. That was used by the plaintiffs to show Monsanto's multimillion dollar effort to deceive the news and scientific media about glyphosate.
  - nearbuy 7y ago
    Is that not a good thing? It's a different matter entirely if Monsanto fed false information to the reporter. But it seems like they're pointing out that the IARC ignored scientific data and published an opinion on glyphosate contrary to the scientific consensus and every other regulator body. If the IARC's conclusions were flawed, Monsanto should be pointing it out. I'm also not sure why you'd need internal Monsanto emails to know that Monsanto is the source, since the Reuters article itself says Monsanto is the source about midway through.
    - sgift 7y ago
      The IARC didn't "ignore scientific data", they came to a different conclusion based on weighting multiple studies available against each other than the one Monsanto would have preferred. It is precisely the job of the IARC to find a scientific consensus based on the available data and publish it. Monsanto on the other hand used Reuters to spread FUD about the IARC. A strategy right out of the cigarette industries playbook.
      - nearbuy 7y ago
        > they came to a different conclusion based on weighting multiple studies available against each other than the one Monsanto would have preferred They also came to a different conclusion than every single other national and international agency on glyphosate. Which is why I'm inclined to believe the IARC is wrong here. Monsanto bribing or corrupting the scientists from every other agency studying glyphosate across many countries and the IARC being the only bastion of honest scientists is, in my opinion, pretty much impossible. If you read the Reuters article, it's quite specific about what the IARC removed from their earlier draft. For example, "In further discussion of the same 1983 study, IARC’s final published report refers to expert pathologists on a panel commissioned to reanalyze the work of the original investigators. The IARC draft notes that these pathologists “unanimously” agreed with the original investigators that glyphosate was not related to potentially precancerous tissue growths in the mice. IARC’s final report deletes that sentence. Reviewing a second mouse study, the IARC draft included a comment saying the incidence of a type of animal cancer known as haemangiosarcoma was “not significant” in both males and females. IARC’s published monograph, by contrast, inserts a fresh statistical analysis calculation on the data in male mice, and concludes that the findings were statistically significant." The IARC's final report removed the conclusion from every study finding that glyphosate was not carcinogenic (compared to the IARC's draft that was leaked to Reuters). That sounds like they're ignoring scientific data.

by guelo 7y ago

mzs 7y ago

This is a civil case so does not need to be unanimous: >Only one juror did not believe Roundup harmed Alberta but he was in agreement with fellow jurors on negligence and failure to warn. >Three jurors disagreed with the amount of punitive awarded. https://twitter.com/MariaDinzeo/status/1128044694582095873 https://twitter.com/MariaDinzeo/status/1128044694582095873

staticautomatic 7y ago
Clarification: It technically didn't need to be unanimous because it had 12 people. Civil juries in California have to be unanimous if they're smaller than a certain size. Civil juries in some other states do have to be unanimous.

Aeolun 7y ago

Honestly, after all the stories I’ve heard of US juries everyone is right to be dismissive. I very much doubt all of them spent hours carefully looking at documents, much less understanding them. It’s not necessarily that I disagree with the verdict, but I strongly dislike jury justice.

nearbuy 7y ago

How do you square this with all the major regulatory organization's experts concluding that there is no evidence glyphosate poses a cancer risk to humans? Organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization, European Commission, Canadian Pest Management Regulatory Agency, Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority and the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment have concluded that there is no evidence that glyphosate poses a carcinogenic or genotoxic risk to humans. The EPA has classified glyphosate as "not likely to be carcinogenic to humans." One international scientific organization, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), affiliated with the WHO, has made claims of carcinogenicity in research reviews; in 2015 the IARC declared glyphosate "probably carcinogenic." [1] [The IARC] dismissed and edited findings from a draft of its review of the weedkiller glyphosate that were at odds with its final conclusion that the chemical probably causes cancer. Reuters found 10 significant changes that were made between the draft chapter on animal studies and the published version of IARC’s glyphosate assessment. In each case, a negative conclusion about glyphosate leading to tumors was either deleted or replaced with a neutral or positive one. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate#Cancer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate#Cancer [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-who-iarc-glyphosate-specialreport/in-glyphosate-review-who-cancer-agency-edited-out-non-carcinogenic-findings-idUSKBN1CO251 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-who-iarc-glyphosate-speci...

guelo 7y ago
That Reuters article by Kate Kelland came up during the trial because internal Monsanto emails show that they fed that story to that reporter. That was used by the plaintiffs to show Monsanto's multimillion dollar effort to deceive the news and scientific media about glyphosate.
- nearbuy 7y ago
  Is that not a good thing? It's a different matter entirely if Monsanto fed false information to the reporter. But it seems like they're pointing out that the IARC ignored scientific data and published an opinion on glyphosate contrary to the scientific consensus and every other regulator body. If the IARC's conclusions were flawed, Monsanto should be pointing it out. I'm also not sure why you'd need internal Monsanto emails to know that Monsanto is the source, since the Reuters article itself says Monsanto is the source about midway through.
  - sgift 7y ago
    The IARC didn't "ignore scientific data", they came to a different conclusion based on weighting multiple studies available against each other than the one Monsanto would have preferred. It is precisely the job of the IARC to find a scientific consensus based on the available data and publish it. Monsanto on the other hand used Reuters to spread FUD about the IARC. A strategy right out of the cigarette industries playbook.
    - nearbuy 7y ago
      > they came to a different conclusion based on weighting multiple studies available against each other than the one Monsanto would have preferred They also came to a different conclusion than every single other national and international agency on glyphosate. Which is why I'm inclined to believe the IARC is wrong here. Monsanto bribing or corrupting the scientists from every other agency studying glyphosate across many countries and the IARC being the only bastion of honest scientists is, in my opinion, pretty much impossible. If you read the Reuters article, it's quite specific about what the IARC removed from their earlier draft. For example, "In further discussion of the same 1983 study, IARC’s final published report refers to expert pathologists on a panel commissioned to reanalyze the work of the original investigators. The IARC draft notes that these pathologists “unanimously” agreed with the original investigators that glyphosate was not related to potentially precancerous tissue growths in the mice. IARC’s final report deletes that sentence. Reviewing a second mouse study, the IARC draft included a comment saying the incidence of a type of animal cancer known as haemangiosarcoma was “not significant” in both males and females. IARC’s published monograph, by contrast, inserts a fresh statistical analysis calculation on the data in male mice, and concludes that the findings were statistically significant." The IARC's final report removed the conclusion from every study finding that glyphosate was not carcinogenic (compared to the IARC's draft that was leaked to Reuters). That sounds like they're ignoring scientific data.