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Jury Finds Bayer's Roundup Weedkiller Caused Man's Cancer (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Shares in Germany's Bayer's fell more than 12 percent on Wednesday after a second U.S. jury ruled its Roundup weed killer caused cancer. Tuesday's unanimous jury decision in San Francisco federal court was not a finding of Bayer's liability for the cancer of plaintiff Edwin Hardeman. Liability and damages will be decided by the same jury in a second trial phase beginning on Wednesday. Bayer, which denies allegations that glyphosate or Roundup cause cancer, said it was disappointed with the jury's initial decision. Bayer acquired Monsanto, the longtime maker of Roundup, for $63 billion last year. The case was only the second of some 11,200 Roundup lawsuits to go to trial in the United States. Another California man was awarded $289 million in August after a state court jury found Roundup caused his cancer. That award was later reduced to $78 million and is on appeal.
Bayer had claimed that jury was overly influenced by plaintiffs' lawyers allegations of corporate misconduct and did not focus on the science. U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria called such evidence "a distraction" from the scientific question of whether glyphosate causes cancer. He split the Hardeman case into two phases: one to decide causation, the other to determine Bayer's potential liability and damages. Under Chhabria's order, the second phase would only take place if the jury found Roundup to be a substantial factor in causing Hardeman's non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The jury found that it was on Tuesday.
Bayer had claimed that jury was overly influenced by plaintiffs' lawyers allegations of corporate misconduct and did not focus on the science. U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria called such evidence "a distraction" from the scientific question of whether glyphosate causes cancer. He split the Hardeman case into two phases: one to decide causation, the other to determine Bayer's potential liability and damages. Under Chhabria's order, the second phase would only take place if the jury found Roundup to be a substantial factor in causing Hardeman's non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The jury found that it was on Tuesday.
Nobody has proven that it causes cancer. That's the point. After hundreds of studies all the data is still negative. We can't prove a negative, but we can certainly point to all of the studies which failed to disprove it. That's how science works.
Too bad they didn't use science to reach the proper verdict.
How do you know? Did you read articles that I didn't?
Just the one linked here, but it does in fact say exactly that.
It says the jury only examined and considered evidence regarding the companies business practices, and the judge even called that out.
The jury did not mention anything regarding the scientific studies about if it causes cancer.
The same article even finishes by including the outcome of some of those studies.
Bayer had claimed that jury was overly influenced by plaintiffs' lawyers allegations of corporate misconduct and did not focus on the science.
U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria called such evidence "a distraction" from the scientific question of whether glyphosate causes cancer.
and
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the European Chemicals Agency and other regulators have found that glyphosate is not likely carcinogenic to humans. But the World Health Organization's cancer arm in 2015 reached a different conclusion, classifying glyphosate as "probably carcinogenic to humans."
Had the jury known of and mentioned that very last part from the world health organization, chances are good no one would be discussing this phase of the trial at all.
Even with the "probably" qualifier used, that being mentioned would have put the requirement to scientifically prove there was no chance or that study was flawed or something.
As it is they don't really need to do any real work to counter anything.
If that fact is brought up on appeal, then a whole new trial will need to be held to counter their counter, and basically is more or less starting from square one minus all the time and money and effort wasted to get there.
I have to agree with GP. The jury was required to show scientific evidence, and clearly if some dip reporters can find it, it can't be that difficult of a task!
Getting to the right answer by completely wrong and improper means won't help matters and gives Bayer far more wiggle room in court than they should have been given.
Post the scientific study that proves it or GTFO.
https://www.iarc.fr/wp-content...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.co...
This is the evaluation by IARC that opened up for the lawsuits:
IARC Monographs Volume 112: evaluation of five organophosphate insecticides and herbicides, International Agency for Research on Cancer, 2015:
That IARC evaluation was subsequently criticized, and other high-profile papers and agencies were unable to reach the same conclusions:
A regulatory perspective on the potential carcinogenicity of glyphosate, Journal of Toxicology and Health, 2015:
The BfR has finalised its draft report for the re-evaluation of glyphosate - BfR, German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, 2015:
Systematic review and meta-analysis of glyphosate exposure and risk of lymphohematopoietic cancers, Journal of Environmental Science and Health, 2016:
EPA Releases Draft Risk Assessments for Glyphosate, Environmental Protection Agency, 2017:
Glyphosate toxicity and carcinogenicity: a review of the scientific basis of the European Union assessment and its differences with IARC, Archives of Toxicology, 2017:
Bayer continues "to believe firmly that science confirms that glyphosate-based herbicides do not cause cancer".
It always sets of my BS detector that it leaves a loop hole for one of the solvents or even the glyphosate when combined with one of the solvents to cause cancer.
That seems pretty iron clad and not weasel worded to me. Roundup is a glyphosate based herbicide. The scientific evidence says it doesn't cause cancer. Or more accurately, doesn't cause in increase in cancer risk, even at moderate exposure levels well above what most people experience.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Well, Monsanto used to be the largest manufacturer of PCBs in the US, a fair amount of which apparently got dumped into some rivers. They paid out $700 million to some people in Alabama as a settlement. Something along the same lines in Wales. They were also involved in making agent orange for the US to use in Vietnam, and then denied a connection between exposure and US veterans' medical problems. They settled that one too. They've also admitted to illegal bribery and accounting fraud.
Yeah, that's fair. Kinda. I mean the PCB thing ... for the majority of the time they were being manufactured nobody really knew about the risks, and Monsanto certainly wasn't the only manufacturer. And they stopped making them well before any laws were passed which would have put a stop to it. But, sure, at least your criticisms are in the realm of reality.
Monsanto did have a less-than-stellar record some 50 years ago, but I'm not sure that it's particularly rational to hate a corporation because of things they did back when most of the people they currently employ were still in diapers. I do appreciate you providing some decent criticism rather than the usual garbage though.
"no apparent risk to consumers was identified"
https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/5263
"The Meeting concluded that glyphosate is unlikely to be genotoxic at anticipated dietary exposures. Several carcinogenicity studies in mice and rats are available. The Meeting concluded that glyphosate is not carcinogenic in rats but could not exclude the possibility that it is carcinogenic in mice at very high doses. In view of the absence of carcinogenic potential in rodents at human-relevant doses and the absence of genotoxicity by the oral route in mammals, and considering the epidemiological evidence from occupational exposures, the Meeting concluded that glyphosate is unlikely to pose a carcinogenic risk to humans from exposure through the diet. The Meeting reaffirmed the group ADI for the sum of glyphosate and its metabolites of 0–1 mg/kg body weight on the basis of effects on the salivary gland. The Meeting concluded that it was not necessary to establish an ARfD for glyphosate or its metabolites in view of its low acute toxicity."
https://www.who.int/foodsafety/jmprsummary2016.pdf?ua=1
"the Agency reevaluated the human carcinogenic potential of glyphosate, which
included a weight-of-evidence evaluation of data from animal toxicity, genotoxicity, and
epidemiological studies. This evaluation was presented to the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and
Rodenticide Scientific Advisory Panel (FIFRA SAP) and was subsequently updated based on their
review. The Agency concluded that glyphosate should be classified as “not likely to be
carcinogenic to humans.”
https://www.regulations.gov/contentStreamer?documentId=EPA-HQ-OPP-2009-0361-0068&contentType=pdf
You can read the Canada Supreme Court decision that Monsato won over Percy Schmeiser (first link in the references). It was pretty obvious that he was innocent. The Court even reduced his fine to $1 (a fact scrubbed from the wiki page, probably by Monsanto-paid editors) because they determined that he didn't benefit in any way from planting the RoundUp Ready seeds (he never sprayed RoundUp on his crops).
The Court only decided in favor of Monsanto because they did have a patent, and they determined Schmeiser violated that patent by planting seeds with the patented gene. And even that determination is suspect because the Court bought Monsanto's argument that there was no way for plants to develop resistance to RoundUp on their own. So Schmeiser "ought to have known" that the canola plants he found in the gutters by his field that survived spraying with RoundUp were from Monsanto's patented seeds. This argument was later disproven when weeds were found which had developed resistance to RoundUp on their own, meaning Schmeiser was right when he argued that he believed the Canola in his gutters had developed resistance on their own.