SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Monsanto 'bullied scientists' and hid weedkiller cancer risk, lawyer tells court
Monsanto has long worked to "bully scientists" and suppress evidence of the cancer risks of its popular weedkiller, a lawyer argued on Monday in a landmark lawsuit against the global chemical corporation.
"Monsanto has specifically gone out of its way to bully ... and to fight independent researchers," said the attorney Brent Wisner, who presented internal Monsanto emails that he said showed how the agrochemical company rejected critical research and expert warnings over the years while pursuing and helping to write favorable analyses of their products. "They fought science."
Wisner, who spoke inside a crowded San Francisco courtroom, is representing DeWayne Johnson, known also as Lee, a California man whose cancer has spread through his body. The father of three and former school groundskeeper, who doctors say may have just months to live, is the first person to take Monsanto to trial over allegations that the chemical sold under the Roundup brand is linked to cancer. Thousands have made similar legal claims across the US.
Monsanto? Never heard of it.
Also at the San Francisco Chronicle.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @02:29AM (24 children)
The real damage is caused by the fact that a corporation CANNOT admit guilt, EVER.
Without the OP's "Caveat Emptor", no one can ever know that a product is killing him, and thus ever more people are, ironically, hoodwinked into danger by a governmental policy that is meant to protect them. Allow companies to acknowledge danger without repercussion, and you'll save so many lives.
Please! PLEASE!
When will you wee humans learn that your heuristical thinking always result in backwards deductions. Caveat Emptor saves lives; retrospective liability hurts lives.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @03:00AM (14 children)
What market forces do you suppose exist that would guide corporations to admit guilt in the absence of this claimed retroactive liability?
Refusing to sell an item is free speech that does not constitute guilt unless I am mistaken. Don't you suppose that if a corporation learns that one of its products is harmful, at a minimum, it would simply stop selling it due to those market forces?
I also believe voluntary recalls are a thing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @03:30AM (13 children)
I never suggested that corporations need to be guided to admit guilt. Rather, I suggested that corporations need to be free from retroactive guilt.
That "subtlety' (as you wee humans see it) makes all the difference.
It allows for "independent" information to surface without inordinate fear from the profiteers of a poo-pooed product. Sure, reports of lethal danger will hurt the bottom line, but it won't imply bankruptcy, and it won't imply endless years of overhead; the corporation can pivot to some other stream of revenue.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @03:49AM (12 children)
What would be the difference between a Monsanto with an inordinate fear and a Monsanto that merely fears losing sales?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @03:53AM (11 children)
Society would benefit from a product, and then society would more rapidly move on to a safer product or safer practices.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @04:10AM (10 children)
This is already the status quo. You have not demonstrated how an anarcho-capitalist Monsanto would behave differently from the real Monsanto.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @04:24AM (9 children)
I never said any such thing, and I don't think the logical framework of our comments can adequately support the discussion of such an idea.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @04:28AM (8 children)
So are you saying that Monsanto's behavior would not be changed?
I am merely trying to follow your logic, and by asking questions, I am giving you the principle of charity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @04:50AM (7 children)
That translates to: "I'm better than you, and I'm pandering to your obviously lower intelligence."
How about you ask a real question, rather than some hypothetical that only has meaning to your mind?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @12:42PM (5 children)
lol
In order to support the proposal, it must have advantages. Have you never taken high school debate class? I am running a negative argument, and you are running an affirmative argument.
I think my question is fair. It is hardly hypothetical, when we are so faced with the question of corporations who have a market interest in manipulating scientific studies.
I ask again. How would your proposal change Monsanto's behavior?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @02:04PM (4 children)
same AC as parent
I realize I am asking the wrong question. Let me try again. How would your proposal help the free market drive a bad actor such as Monsanto out of business in favor of a more honest competitor?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @03:30PM (3 children)
The dishonesty comes from the government policy of enforcing retroactive liability; the OP is arguing that to reduce the dishonesty, one should remove the retroactive liability.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @03:58PM (2 children)
So we come back again to the want of an example! If the government did not enforce retroactive liability, how would Monsanto's actions be different?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 12 2018, @12:13PM (1 child)
Monsanto would then have less of an incentive to cover up any problem; the path of least resistance would become acknowledging the problem, and thereby being able to put resources into some other revenue stream rather than defending itself at nearly all cost.
I don't know how you can even dispute that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 12 2018, @02:40PM
The obvious rebuttal is Thexalon's having to do with well-defined property rights. Yet the story has dropped from the front page, alas.
Looks like that's it, for now, but until next time, may the power of the cosmos be with you!
Yes! Yes! Yes!
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday July 16 2018, @02:30PM
Says the guy who's complaining about "you wee humans" as if he's some higher form of life...
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @03:12AM (8 children)
Wow youre a moron. So companies have zero incentive to research whether their product is safe? Then when it is found out they caused cancer in millions of people they can hide behind "caveat emptor"? God damn youre a shill, or if not being paid an absolute moron. Like epic levels of stupidity. EPIC!
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @03:34AM (5 children)
Safety is a lie.
Nothing ever gets done by people who demand absolute safety. They just die, alone, wimpering in a damp cave.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @04:43AM (4 children)
No one said "absolute safety" but to give an example, tobacco! It was known for a very long time that cigarettes massively increased the chances of lung cancer but it was swept under the rug and then promoted to children! That is your vaunted "free market" at work. Without legal culpability corporations are easily taken over by sociopaths who rationalize that the consumer is the moron so why not take their money. Oh, they die earlier? Well good riddance to an idiot willing to smoke themselves to death! /s
Most likely you're just another internet troll trying to get reactions for the lulz, but I respond as if you're serious because it is worth the risk of giving some troll what he wants if at least a few others are given pause when considering our shitty vaunted capitalist system.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @04:54AM
I mean, what could your point possibly be?
Big Government and Big Tobacco were in indisputable cahoots; as always, Government is the problem because it holds some strange, inexplicable reverence by society.
There's nothing about Big Tobacco that was "Free Market'. NOTHING.
I'm not a troll. I'm really not. I just want you fuckers to leave me alone. Get your guns out of my face.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @12:17PM (2 children)
Noone figured out how to have tobacco smoke give a mammal cancer until 2005. All the methods that worked for other carcinogens (eg radioactive dust) failed. What finally worked is putting specially bred mice in a smoke filled tank within 12 hours of birth, doing this every day for their entire adolescence (4 months), then stopping the procedure for just as long. Thats right, they need to simulate quitting smoking to get the cancer. Tobacco smoke is a very weak carcinogen, if it even is at all more than anything else.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @01:15PM (1 child)
Source:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15765916 [nih.gov]
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29370344 [nih.gov]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @05:53PM
Makes sense, the healing and regrowth is when the cancerous mutations occur. It also fits with the many anecdotal accounts of people quitting and then getting cancer.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday July 11 2018, @01:47PM (1 child)
The two are not mutually exclusive. A moron, absolute or not, can still be paid to be a shill.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 1) by DeVilla on Thursday July 12 2018, @04:44AM
A = "you're a shill"
B = "you're an absolute moron"
!A -> B
What he said is reasonable. If A is not true, then B must be true. In this case, if A is true, we can't really be certain about B.