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Monsanto Ordered To Pay $289 Million In Roundup Cancer Trial (bbc.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the landmark-cases dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report from the BBC involving glyphosate, the world's most common weedkiller: Chemical giant Monsanto has been ordered to pay $289 million in damages to a man who claimed herbicides containing glyphosate had caused his cancer. In a landmark case, a Californian jury found that Monsanto knew its Roundup and RangerPro weedkillers were dangerous and failed to warn consumers. It's the first lawsuit to go to trial alleging a glyphosate link to cancer. Monsanto denies that glyphosate causes cancer and says it intends to appeal against the ruling.

The claimant in the case, groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson, is among more than 5,000 similar plaintiffs across the US. Mr Johnson was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2014. His lawyers said he regularly used a form of RangerPro while working at a school in Benicia, California. Jurors found on Friday that the company had acted with "malice" and that its weedkillers contributed "substantially" to Mr Johnson's terminal illness.

14 of 219 comments (clear)

  1. The only problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Is that roundup doesn't cause cancer.

    1. Re:The only problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Now the politics comes into play. A court FINDS that the chemicals used DO cause cancer. BUT, it is politically "expedient" to those in (real) power to keep Monsanto in business - not getting sued to shreds. So we can unfortunately but safely predict the will wear the victim out to death and then quietly "settle" behind closed doors (for much less, plus a shut-up sign-here "agreement").

    2. Re: The only problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Then why go to all the trouble of suppressing and paying for false flag studies?
      https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/14/business/monsanto-roundup-safety-lawsuit.html

    3. Re:The only problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      BS.

      Classic tobacco science.
      i.e., big business purchasing obfuscation and positive results for their product
      See:
      https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-07-13/does-the-world-s-top-weed-killer-cause-cancer-trump-s-epa-will-decide

      > Far from settling the matter, eight of the 15 experts expressed significant concerns about the EPA’s benign view of glyphosate, and three more expressed concerns about the data.
      > The EPA paper had a whack-a-mole quality to it.
      > Many of the reasons cited in the paper contradicted the agency’s own carcinogenicity guidelines, multiple panelists pointed out.
      > The EPA’s report on the peer review, posted on March 16, raises obfuscation to a high bureaucratic art.

    4. Re: The only problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Scientists claimed DDT is safe to spray on kids
      Ditto agent orange
      Ditto morning sickness pills
      Ditto burning people at stake since they knew the Earth is flat

      Scientists are good/useful but they operate best at theoretical level and need to be super super super careful before proceeding to anything beyond that, and that is not happening all the time

    5. Re:The only problem by Cinnamon+Beige · · Score: 4, Insightful

      FTFA: http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-ce... https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0...

      Let's start with the simple one! NYT is not a scientific, peer-reviewed journal. It also has a bit of a history of being a lousy place to get your science news.

      The IARC thing is two pages and doesn't include a single reference, citation, or smidgen of data. I'd not be able to use it as a citation for anything other than for it being considered a probable carcinogen by the IARC--it's remarkably free of statistics, and citations which is actually rather concerning, especially given how cancer actually works & why we have had the admission that most cancers are caused by...well...failing to die.

      If you're trying to support a claim of 'causes cancer,' there's no substitute for quality peer-reviewed research when it comes to supporting the claims, especially since there's been some rather long-term problems with the quality of the research and how it gets interpreted.

      The IARC paper places Roundup in group 2A, which it defines as:

      Group 2A means that the agent is probably carcinogenic to humans. This category is used when there is limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans and sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals. Limited evidence means that a positive association has been observed between exposure to the agent and cancer but that other explanations for the observations (called chance, bias, or confounding) could not be ruled out. This category is also used when there is limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans and strong data on how the agent causes cancer.

      The translation for those not familiar with cancer research: "We need money for more research." You don't really get funding if you are wanting to show that something probably doesn't cause cancer...which is not something I'm comfortable with, so I pretty quickly figured out I want nothing to do with this field of research if I could help it.

    6. Re: The only problem by c6gunner · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Scientists claimed DDT is safe to spray on kids

      It is. DDT was banned because it was linked to a decline in bird populations, not because of harm to humans.

      Ditto agent orange

      Why would you spray agent orange on children? It's an herbicide. Unless your kids name is Herb, you're just wasting money.

      Anyway, agent orange on it's own isn't harmful to humans. The issue with the batches used was that they were contaminated with TCDD. And it was those eeeeevil scientists who discovered and pointed out the contamination issue.

      Ditto morning sickness pills

      Again, not sure why you're giving these to kids. Additionally, I'm not sure what you think the problem here is.

      Ditto burning people at stake since they knew the Earth is flat

      If you think that scientists were burning people at the stake, or claiming that the world is flat, you are one seriously deluded individual.

      Scientists are good/useful but they operate best at theoretical level and need to be super super super careful before proceeding to anything beyond that, and that is not happening all the time

      Whereas you operate at the "I'm just gonna make shit up" level, and think that this somehow makes you better than scientists.

  2. Re:Ain't gonna pay out by ArchieBunker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The payout wasn't to compensate the victim. It was to punish the company who suppressed information that the product was dangerous.

    --
    Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
  3. Re:odd result by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Shouldn't it first be scientifically, or at least statistically proven, that glyphosate can cause cancer

    No. The courts should be accessible to everyone, even janitors. Nobody should have to wait for permission from scientists before seeking justice. It is not the janitor's fault that no conclusive research has been done, so why should he be denied his day in court?

  4. Re:The Jury by CharlesAKAChuck · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That's easy-it was in California. EVERYTHING in California causes cancer. EVERYTHING. Therefore, if someone says RoundUp gave them cancer, then in California it's an automatic win, because EVERYTHING in California causes cancer.

  5. Re:Ain't gonna pay out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The courts should have awarded it to medical care, cancer research, etc - or do they think they can award this to ever cancer sufferer who used roundup?

    It's the court. They can do whatever they want within existing legislation. That includes ordering a company pay out of 289 million to a victim for killing him while covering up information that could have saved his life.

    If an individual person did the exact same thing instead of a group of people behind a corporate veil, they would be convicted of murder and spend the rest of their life in prison.

    Real justice would be liquidating the company and putting all board members and executives in prison.

  6. Monsanto by tquasar · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Remember Roundup Ready seeds? Engineered to produce crops that would survive direct application of the herbicide. Farmers were coerced to use Roundup and also buy seed instead of saving or banking seed from a previous season. Adjacent fields were affected by Roundup and pollen that drifted on the wind. https://www.sourcewatch.org/in... .

  7. This guy was covered in it, breathing it, daily by raymorris · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Exactly. Apparently this guy was constantly working with 50 pound bags of the stuff every day or whatever. Breathing in the dust all time, having it on his skin dissolved in sweat all the time, etc. That's very different from the tiny amount of residue a typical person might be exposed to.

    Sunlight increases cancer risk (and has health benefits), the human body naturally produces formaldehyde, a carcinogen. All the other things make your exposure and my exposure to Roundup statistical noise, insignificant compared to other things. The plaintiff here had a million times as much exposure than average people do, it seems. That could very well make a difference.

  8. Re:Ain't gonna pay out by ArchieBunker · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I swear the autism level here is worse than 4chan.

    --
    Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard