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US Supreme Court rejects Bayer's bid to end Roundup lawsuits:
The US Supreme Court has rejected Bayer's bid to dismiss legal claims by customers who say its weedkiller causes cancer, as the German company seeks to avoid potentially billions of dollars in damages.
The justices turned away a Bayer appeal's on Tuesday and left in place a lower court decision that upheld $25m in damages awarded to California resident Edwin Hardeman, a user of its product Roundup, who blamed his cancer on the pharmaceutical and chemical giant's glyphosate-based weedkillers.
The Supreme Court's ruling dealt a blow to Bayer as the company manoeuvres to limit its legal liability in thousands of cases. The justices have a second Bayer petition pending on a related issue that they could act upon in the coming weeks.
Roundup-related lawsuits have dogged Bayer since it acquired the brand as part of its $63bn purchase of agricultural seeds and pesticides maker Monsanto in 2018.
[...] The lawsuits against Bayer have said the company should have warned customers of the alleged cancer risk.
[...] Bayer plans to replace glyphosate in weedkillers for the US residential market of non-professional gardeners with other active ingredients.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 23 2022, @04:02PM (1 child)
Witnessing herbicide abuse locally has convinced me that "weedkillers for the US residential market of non-professional gardeners" simply shouldn't exist. At least, not broad-spectrum herbicides. I've seen them misapplied on hillsides, and applied to entire lots. The dead zone lasts a lot longer than advertised. It destroys root systems. It wrecks slopes and sends silt in to our local watershed which is a known problem. The agricultural areas are worse though. The stream outlet into the lake from those areas has a noted brown stream when rain occurs; but that's probably more likely due to improper plowing and wildfire burn scars. Vacant lots "nuked" by glyphosate might be a drop in the bucket, but they shouldn't exist. It's the lazy way of vegetation control required to prevent wildfires. Mechanical removal (cutting off at the base) is the proper way, so that the soil is held.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 24 2022, @06:19AM
There are some places I don’t want any vegetation. Like on my driveway. Thankful for broad spectrum herbicides.