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Monsanto Cancer Trial Begins in San Francisco

posted by martyb on Wednesday July 11 2018, @01:57AM   Printer-friendly
from the trial-roundup dept.

takyon writes:

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.

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @03:34AM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @03:34AM (#705567)

    Safety is a lie.

    Nothing ever gets done by people who demand absolute safety. They just die, alone, wimpering in a damp cave.

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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @04:43AM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @04:43AM (#705592)

    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

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @04:54AM (#705597)

      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)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @12:17PM (#705682)

      It was known for a very long time that cigarettes massively increased the chances of lung cancer

      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)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @01:15PM (#705699)

        Source:

        Strain A mice were exposed first to a comparatively high concentration of ETS, generated from the sidestream (89%) and mainstream (11%) smoke from burning Kentucky 1R4F cigarettes, as described before in detail [9]. After a 5-month exposure, the animals were allowed to recover in air for another 4 months before evaluation of the lung tumor response. The same protocol was eventually adopted by three other laboratories [10–12].
        [...]
        The flat dose-response suggests that tobacco smoke is a comparatively weak carcinogen. A previous study in which a dose-response was conducted in one single experiment came to the same conclusion [13]. It may to some extent explain why most inhalation studies done with tobacco smoke in mice failed to give a positive tumor response [14, 15]. The fact that ‘‘only’’ 10% to 25% of all smokers develop lung cancer [16] might also be construed to indicate that tobacco smoke is not a very potent carcinogen in man.

        https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15765916 [nih.gov]

        In spite of the dominant role of cigarette smoke (CS) in the epidemiology of lung tumors, tumors at other sites, and other chronic degenerative diseases [1, 2], it is very difficult to reproduce the noxious effects of this complex mixture in animal models.
        [...]
        During the last decade, we developed a novel murine model that convincingly reproduces the carcinogenicity of MCS [6] and its modulation under conditions mimicking interventions either in current smokers and/or ex-smokers.
        [...]
        Our model involves exposure of mice for 4 months, starting at birth, followed by a period of 3-4 months in filtered air in order to give enough time for the growth of histopathological lesions.

        https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29370344 [nih.gov]

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @05:53PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @05:53PM (#705835)

          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.