from the something-that-kills-something-might-be-bad-for-you dept.
In the first trial of its kind, a Californian dying of cancer is suing US agrochemical giant Monsanto, claiming its popular herbicide Roundup caused his disease—a case that could have sweeping ramifications.
The stakes are high for Monsanto, which could face massive losses should it have to pay out damages over the product, whose main ingredient is glyphosate, a substance which some say is dangerously carcinogenic.
Dewayne Johnson, a 46-year-old father of two, says he is sick because of contact with Roundup, which he used for two years from 2012 as a groundskeeper for the Benicia school district near San Francisco, his lawyer Timothy Litzenburg told AFP.
Thousands of lawsuits targeting Monsanto are currently proceeding through the US court system, according to American media.
Litzenburg says he represents hundreds of people who also say they are victims of glyphosate.
Whether the substance causes cancer has been the source of endless debate among government regulators, health experts and lawyers.
"A major part of that job was spraying Roundup or Ranger Pro (a similar Monsanto product)... He sprayed it 20 to 40 times per year, sometimes hundreds of gallons at a time on the school properties," Litzenburg said.
In 2014, Johnson was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a cancer that affects white blood cells. Two years later, and no longer able to work, he filed suit against Monsanto, which he accuses of hiding its product's dangers.
"His case has been expedited because he currently has only a few months to live," his lawyer said.
Wikipedia entry on glyphosate.
Related Stories
Monsanto ordered to pay $289 million in California Roundup cancer trial
A California jury on Friday found Monsanto liable in a lawsuit filed by a man who alleged the company's glyphosate-based weed-killers, including Roundup, caused him cancer and ordered the company to pay $289 million in damages.
The case of school groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson was the first lawsuit alleging glyphosate causes cancer to go to trial. Monsanto, a unit of Bayer AG following a $62.5 billion acquisition by the German conglomerate, faces more than 5,000 similar lawsuits across the United States.
The jury at San Francisco's Superior Court of California deliberated for three days before finding that Monsanto had failed to warn Johnson and other consumers of the cancer risks posed by its weed killers.
It awarded $39 million in compensatory and $250 million in punitive damages.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/10/monsanto-ordered-to-pay-289m-in-california-roundup-cancer-trial.html
Monsanto Ordered to Pay $289 Million to Man Who Claimed Glyphosate Caused His Cancer
Monsanto ordered to pay $289m damages in Roundup cancer trial
Chemical giant Monsanto has been ordered to pay $289m (£226m) 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 jury got it wrong," vice-president Scott Partridge said outside the courthouse in San Francisco.
The claimant in the case, groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson, is among more than 5,000 similar plaintiffs across the US.
Monsanto? Never heard of it. Did you mean Bayer AG?
Previously: Cancer Hazard vs. Risk - Glyphosate
Monsanto Faces First US Trial Over Roundup Cancer Link
Monsanto Cancer Trial Begins in San Francisco
Related: Glyphosate Linked to Liver Damage
Study: Roundup Weed Killer Could Be Linked To Widespread Bee Deaths
The controversial herbicide Roundup has been accused of causing cancer in humans and now scientists in Texas argue that the world's most popular weed killer could be partly responsible for killing off bee populations around the world.
A new study [open, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1803880115] [DX] by scientists at the University of Texas at Austin posit that glyphosate — the active ingredient in the herbicide — destroys specialized gut bacteria in bees, leaving them more susceptible to infection and death from harmful bacteria.
Researchers Nancy Moran, Erick Motta and Kasie Raymann suggest their findings are evidence that glyphosate might be contributing to colony collapse disorder, a phenomenon that has been wreaking havoc on honey bees and native bees for more than a decade.
Also at Science Magazine.
Related:
Landmark Study: Honeybee Queens Severely Affected by Neonicotinoid Pesticides
Cancer Hazard vs. Risk - Glyphosate
Glyphosate Linked to Liver Damage
Extensive Study Concludes Neonicotinoid Pesticides Harm Bees
Lithium Chloride May Help in Fixing Bee Colony Collapse Disorder
European Regulator Finds That Neonicotinoid Pesticides Threaten Bees
Monsanto Faces First US Trial Over Roundup Cancer Link
Monsanto Ordered to Pay $289 Million in Glyphosate Cancer Trial
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ilPapa on Friday June 22 2018, @11:07PM (19 children)
If Monsanto is destroyed, it can only be a good thing for the world. This would be a good time for it to happen, because the President of the United States says we're at full employment, so all the Monsanto workers will be able to find new jobs as ICE agents.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 22 2018, @11:10PM (1 child)
1. Destroy Roundup
2. Full speed ahead with population control
3. ???
4. Elysium
(Score: 4, Touché) by Gaaark on Saturday June 23 2018, @03:09AM
1. Spray ALL Monsanto executives with heavy doses of roundup.
2. See what percentage of them get cancer.
3. Further research not needed.
4. Die Monsanto, die (but not the German die...)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2, Informative) by Sulla on Friday June 22 2018, @11:32PM (16 children)
Monsanto makes a ton of different products. The destruction of Monsanto would have a global effect for a period of time until the next company comes along to fill the void. The effects of it would not be too terrible for us here in the US, we could find other ways to get past crop failures and reductions in yield. 2015 had some 140 billion in agriculture exports. I don't know the percentage of farming in the US that relies on Monsanto products but according to Fake News CNN the yields from Organic are some 25% lower than "conventional" farming. I am sure Americans could afford the increases in costs, but what about the places that rely on our agg exports for their survival?
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-countries-importing-the-most-food-in-the-world.html [worldatlas.com]
Countries unable to produce enough food
I for one am not for starving Africans. I am no fan of Monsanto but we need to give the devil his due. Africa in particular has population growth far beyond their ability to produce and it looks to be getting worse, companies like Monsanto will be the only answer to that without some sort of legitimate non-evil competitor entering the market.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Friday June 22 2018, @11:49PM (3 children)
I find it politically fascinating that the right is presented as the ultimate enemy of brown people. But the right doesn't actually do anything wrong, they just get bad PR for not saying nice things.
Its mostly leftists who want brown people to starve, they're really devoted to increasing the number of dead brown people, yet they get a free pass on genocide because they say nice things.
Its kinda like abortion, leftists have killed millions of black kids, but they get a free pass because they're so "enlightened". Its people who think BLM is stupid who are presented as the real danger, but ignore the piles of dead black babies in the background, LOL.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 22 2018, @11:53PM (1 child)
It just goes to show that leftists have the best policies and are thinking ahead.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday June 23 2018, @08:19AM
Speaking of best policies and thinking ahead:
If you have to lawyer up, get a Jewish lawyer. I can vouch for this -- When Google owned Boston Dynamics, I worked for them, and was fired for calling Eric Schmidt a "Jew fag." I took out my life savings to enlist the help of a Jewish lawyer as my legal council and he got me reinstated, and I have been working for Boston Dynamics ever since, although it's long past its glory days.
As much as I talk trash about Jews, there are no finer people to have your back in the courtroom, whether you are a White man suing your former employer, or a Black man trying to beat multiple murder-one charges.
(Score: 3, Informative) by ilPapa on Saturday June 23 2018, @06:15AM
As long as we're talking about "politically fascinating", did you know that there is now peer-reviewed research that proves a connection between opioid use and Trump voters? It was published in JAMA just this week, and is from teams from the University of Texas and the University of Toronto, and included almost four million subjects.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2685627 [jamanetwork.com]
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by captain normal on Saturday June 23 2018, @12:29AM (10 children)
'...according to Fake News CNN the yields from Organic are some 25% lower than "conventional" farming."
Source?? Citation is needed. Do you have links? hopefully this not something you heard on Fox News or saw on Reddit or 4chan?
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Saturday June 23 2018, @12:31AM (9 children)
https://www-m.cnn.com/2012/04/26/world/organic-food-yield/index.html [cnn.com]
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday June 23 2018, @12:43AM
And there it is.
To the GP: Would it have been any less true had it been from Fox News?
Fox did cover it [foxnews.com], tangentially a couple years later.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by captain normal on Saturday June 23 2018, @02:45AM (7 children)
Thanks,
"...researchers from Canada's McGill University and the U.S.'s University of Minnesota say that the differences are not uniform across every crop with some performing better than others."
"Organic cereals and vegetables fared worst with yields 26% and 33% respectively lower than conventional agriculture
"But other organic produce fared much better.
Legumes (e.g. soybeans) were 11% lower while fruits were almost comparable with conventional farming with yields just 3% lower.
"I think what we were able to do is identify situations where organic agriculture performs well and situations where (it) is not so good," said co-author Verena Seufert from McGill University.
"What we should do is try to address the issues and build systems that achieve high organic yields,"she added.
"Researchers say higher quantities of nitrogen in the soil enable organic crops to perform better while pH-neutral soils can also provide a better growing environment.
"Achieving sustainable food security will require many different farming techniques including organic, conventional and possibly "hybrid" systems, researchers say, enabling food production at affordable prices for both farmers and consumers, while limiting the impact on the environment.
"As the study points out, numerous comparative studies of organic and conventional yields have already been conducted with conflicting results.
A 2007 study "Organic agriculture and the global food supply" concluded organic food could match and, in some instances, exceed the production of conventional farming.
"But, as Seufert and colleagues point out, the findings were queried for use of data from "crops not truly under organic management and inappropriate yield comparisons."
The new study has attempted to address some of the criticisms by limiting analysis to "truly" organic systems.
Food is an emotional topic, says Seufert and much more than about consuming nutrients.
"There are a lot of social and cultural values that we associate with food. So many of these food debates -- like meat or vegetarian diets, about local or global food systems -- all of these debates are often quite heated," she said.
"What we need to do is to try and understand the arguments on both sides and assess the different options as objectively as possible, by supporting them with empirical evidence.
"Maybe we should not be looking for the silver bullet solution, but rather combining different approaches and taking the best from different suggestions."
But Megan Kintzer, director of development at the Rodale Institute, an organic farm and research center in Pennsylvania, says that organic farming is a more sustainable system.
"There is less energy use from organic farming, and the conventional systems produce 40% more greenhouse gases," Kintzer said."
So mixed results.
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Saturday June 23 2018, @02:49AM
Sorry about the WOT. But I thought everyone should see what was said, instead of a headline.
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Saturday June 23 2018, @02:58AM (3 children)
There are more alternatives than just "glyphosate or organic". Agent Orange and glyphosate have been indicted many times. Monsanto spent zillions of dollars (like the tobacco industry) to "prove" that their product is "safe".
What did we do before glyphosate and neonics? Yeah, there was DDT, but that wasn't the only insecticide ever used.
Why is glyphosate pushed so hard, anyway? Or, neonics? Obviously, the owner (Bayer owns both now, of course) can produce it cheaply, and reap a huge profit. Other insecticides may be more expensive to manufacture, may or may not be less effective, and thus, be less profitable. But, the fact is, there ARE alternatives.
And, this brings us back to the old arguments against monocultures. Assuming that we need to kill bugs, why do we want to use the same insecticide all over the world, on all crops? Don't some bugs build up a tolerance? What if glyphosates stop working? What then? Will we be completely helpless against the bug invasion?
Huh. I'm headed to Hollywierd. I think I've got a blockbuster here . . . .
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday June 23 2018, @03:01AM
Glyphosate isn't an insecticide - it's an herbicide. Everyone here knew that, lol, and so did I. I'm doing to many things at once, including getting ready for work. Sorry!
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Saturday June 23 2018, @03:46AM (1 child)
I was going with the assumption that getting rid of monsanto was same as getting rid of every product they make. We could survive without a few of their chems, but we would face hardship if all of them went away all at once.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday June 23 2018, @01:47PM
Unfortunately, the old refrain still holds true. "The king is dead: Long live the king!"
Monsanto is gone, but there is an heir, or an air, or a hair. Maybe it's a hare? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2euFpZs2m9I [youtube.com]
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Saturday June 23 2018, @03:44AM
My comment was not that organics are bad, more that they are currently not as efficient. I imagine if we went full organic we would find ways to make it work better and raise crop yeilds, but in the meantime we would be causing problems for a lot of third world nations. Western nations can eat the costs and suffer through the temporary lower yeilds, but many other countries would not be able to bare the additional burden.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Saturday June 23 2018, @03:49AM
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ecowatch.com/why-is-glyphosate-sprayed-on-crops-right-before-harvest-1882187755.amp.html [google.com]
Roundup is used on grains to dry them out so there is a significantly shorter time from harvest to bale/dry to storage. Yeilds from organic would be significantly off because a rain would destroy entire crops if they happen when the bales are drying.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 23 2018, @05:28PM
your whole posts assumes roundup actually increases yields. are you wearing your Roundup Ready tshirt right now?
(Score: 4, Informative) by frojack on Friday June 22 2018, @11:22PM (6 children)
Glyphosate has been studied by just about everybody, and nobody has proven a cancer risk. Even if the initial Monsanto tests were rushed, everyone plus Dog has done all sorts of tests, including direct exposure to the spray.
At this point even the EU thinks its safe.
So he has a pretty steep scientific hill to climb.
By the way, Monsanto is no more. Bayer bought them.
https://qz.com/1297749/the-end-of-the-monsanto-brand-bayer-pharmaceuticals-is-dropping-the-name-monsanto/ [qz.com]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2, Troll) by bob_super on Saturday June 23 2018, @12:20AM (3 children)
> At this point even the EU thinks its safe.
Which is why they are phasing it out by 2022 ?
The delay is the subject of much arguing, as it is in France and in a few other countries, but I guess they're worried about substitutes being ineffective or more dangerous.
Calling it "safe" is a complete misrepresentation of the EU's position.
(Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Saturday June 23 2018, @12:44AM (2 children)
They just extended the license to 2022. There is no indication they are phasing it out.
But hey, way to Fake News it once again.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Informative) by bob_super on Saturday June 23 2018, @01:21AM (1 child)
The EU vote was pretty disputed, and in the end the Germans protected Bayer (now owner of Monsanto). The odds of a renewal in 2022, when everyone is talking about bans [baumhedlundlaw.com], are pretty slim.
But you are correct that I shouldn't have said "phasing out". Not intentional fake news, misread on my part.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday June 23 2018, @06:18AM
Wrong again.
Germany's vote was neither deciseive nor unanimous.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/27/business/eu-glyphosate-pesticide.html [nytimes.com]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Saturday June 23 2018, @03:46AM
Why do you need to prove it? You just have to convince a jury that it does, award damages and then not get overturned on appeal. Voila, you have precedent and thus a whole new income stream. I'm sure that some seedier portions of the legal industry are salivating over this.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 23 2018, @06:27PM
But Roundup isn't just glyphosate. So even if glyphosate is safe it doesn't mean Roundup is safe or stays safe after it's applied:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/weed-whacking-herbicide-p/ [scientificamerican.com]
Glyphosate doesn't necessarily stay glyphosate:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166445X16302375 [sciencedirect.com]
(Score: 5, Informative) by VLM on Friday June 22 2018, @11:42PM (4 children)
Who? Not any unbiased scientist, that's for sure.
There are a couple issues:
1) Theres a difference between same dose rates and insane. You shouldn't bathe in that stuff nor drink it 50:50 with your drinking water. That does not imply its bad or dangerous; A quart or two of water is necessary for life, try drinking 100 quarts and you will literally die. That does not imply water is toxic.
2) Its not even remotely the main ingredient, its the "active ingredient". A sprayer of roundup is like 99% "stuff that aint glyphosate" which is intended to buffer and preserve the glyphosate which is chemically delicate and not long lived... normally. I don't know what the hell is in roundup and it may very well cause cancer. I hope they're not using raw benzene for example. I wouldn't worry about the 1% glyphosate in the sprayer of roundup; I'd worry about the WTF is the 99% inactive ingredient. It smells, thats for sure.
Its kinda like a vitamin tablet thats mostly sucrose plus like 5 mg of zinc or WTF. Now, if you made a tablet that contains 5 mg of zinc and a gram of pure cyanide, and that cyanide killed the user, that doesn't magically prove zinc kills people. Also if you make perfectly normal aspirin tablets and they work perfectly well at normal doses, it can also be true that the user dies horribly if they take the entire bottle at once. That isn't much of a good argument for banning aspirin.
People are also extremely careful not to discuss the side effects of banning glyphosate... its not like the worlds farmers are going to throw their hands in the air and give up farming and become app developers and we'll all live off self caught rats and cockroaches. There are replacements, some much more dangerous. So ... lets say glyphosate killed 1000 people a year. I don't think it does, but lets say it does for the sake of the argument. Thats great, now we can replace it with the second best that we know kills 2000 per year and costs twice as much. I'm just saying, the usual two minutes hate against glyphosate usually have no game plan. OK we all hate it for two minutes... then what? Who decides who dies of starvation? Who can't afford food anymore, gets to grow up stunted? Crickets, you say?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday June 23 2018, @12:17AM (1 child)
I was motivated to look up the MSDS, there are a lot of glyphosate products most running about 40% of one or another glyphosate salt and 60% god knows what.
glyphosate looks pretty harmless compared to Isopropylamine. So the solution (ugh the pun) is the potassium salt instead of Isopropylamine, assuming its the real culprit, which its statistically unlikely to be, but maybe...
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Sunday June 24 2018, @03:35AM
I was motivated to look up the MSDS, there are a lot of glyphosate products most running about 40% of one or another glyphosate salt and 60% god knows what.
Setting aside the question of glyphosate itself, it is these new products with their "God knows what" ingredients which are not only exceedingly toxic but persistent. That stuff is still marketed as "roundup" which people believe is glyphosate, but it includes something else. It's now common to see trees die across the street from where that stuff is sprayed because the persistent agents make their way to the trees' roots on its way to the water table.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Saturday June 23 2018, @02:17AM (1 child)
There's no such animal as an unbiased scientist, believe me. When you give, they do whatever the hell you want them to do.
And don't worry, we're keeping RoundUp. Because if we lose that one it'll be a DISASTER for our Country. And for our great great farmers. Because RoundUp stops the weeds. And without it we'd have to send our beautiful American workers into the fields. Or our robots. But our workers are very busy right now -- we have the lowest unemployment rate in 18 years. And the lowest African American unemployment since the Civil War. We don't have enough workers. And robots, very expensive. The Dems want open borders, they want foreign workers to be able to just walk into our Country. They want Mexicans and everyone else picking our fruits & vegetables, pulling weeds, touching our food. And making us very sick (Romaine lettuce). No. The United States will not be a migrant camp and it will not be a refugee holding facility. It won't be. If you look at what's happening in Europe, if you look at what's happening in other places, we can't allow that to happen to the United States. Not on my watch!
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Saturday June 23 2018, @02:58AM
Wow you seem to have learned a few new words in the last couple of days, and have improved your vocabulary!! Way to go! Keep it up!
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 22 2018, @11:43PM (3 children)
(source [ewg.org])
(Score: 4, Informative) by VLM on Saturday June 23 2018, @12:03AM (2 children)
NHL is weird BTW. Its not very clear why, but many bacteria and virus infections seem correlated with NHL. NHL also mostly strikes old people, again, weird. Immunosuppressives somehow seem to cause it. Its such a strange combo. Would not be surprised if its some kind of autoimmune disease in the end, when its eventually figured out, assuming it ever is.
Chemically glyphosate does not seem to have much of anything to do with what we know causes NHL. The solvents and crap the glyphosate is dissolved in, in the roundup product, well, damn if i know, and they're the vast majority of the product.
They're talking about something that's not terribly well understood, so making legal policy decisions might be a little premature. Maybe the real problem is witches or poltergeists.
Solvents as a cause or risk factor of autoimmune diseases is a thing... I'm just saying replacing glyphosate with something less effective in the same chemical brew being sprayed will not result in lower NHL rates according to this theory. Or applying glyphosate using another application technology would be zero NHL risk (although I suppose Monsanto would still be liable for selling the bad mix)
You know what else is strange about NHL? Its fairly common, but so little is understood about it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 23 2018, @05:36PM
to no one in particular...
many things get blamed on the immune system as autoimmune diseases just to cover for the fact that scientists can't see what the immune system sees and to sell druigs that make you worse so they can sell you more drugs and hack on you some more when you get sick from all their interventions. they are worse than street dealers. i suspect in many cases the immune system is just doing it's goddamn job. it's not your immune system's fault you are eating processed horse shit until your BBB looks like it got mad cow'd and then eating more shit that is passing into your brain until the immune system has no choice but to attack your brain which is coated with your beloved doritos sludge and unknown viruses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 23 2018, @11:55PM
NHL has two main variants, about 50% prevalence each. The only way to tell them apart is that chemo, usually CHOP-R, cures one of them. The other is fatal.
Not having chemo is also fatal, but not as quickly as having chamo and the bad variant.
This is not a popular thing among doctors, because you are basically saying that the doctors are making 50% of their patients die faster. Doctors do not like to hear that.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 22 2018, @11:47PM (1 child)
Dateline May 15, 2016:
(source [archive.org])
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 23 2018, @12:22AM
According to what the summary says, Johnson may have filed in 2016 too.