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Justice Michael Lee handed down his judgement in the class action against widely-used herbicide Roundup on Thursday afternoon.
The case, launched by Maurice Blackburn Lawyers, claims Roundup's active ingredient glyphosate caused the cancer of more than 800 Australian non-Hodgkin lymphoma patients.
Justice Lee ruled there is not enough current evidence to say glyphosate is carcinogenic and capable of causing non-Hodgkin lymphoma in humans.
The judge only needed to consider the question of general causation – not the specific claims of lead applicant Kelvin McNickle or the other class action group members.
Justice Lee ordered the proceedings be dismissed.
Bayer, which acquired Roundup's producer Monsanto in 2018, has previously stated glyphosate-based herbicides have been rigorously tested in hundreds of studies and it is safe when used as directed.
Related:
•Study First to Link Weed Killer Roundup to Convulsions in Animals
•US Supreme Court Rejects Bayer's Bid to End Roundup Lawsuits
•Bayer Loses Appeal of Ruling That its Weed Killer Causes Cancer
•Widely Used Herbicide Linked to Preterm Births
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday July 28 2024, @10:42AM (6 children)
I'm convinced. If anybody knows what's good for my health, it's justices influenced by power-lawyers from gigantic multinational corporations.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by shrewdsheep on Sunday July 28 2024, @11:53AM (3 children)
I agree that judges are usually incompetent in judging statistical evidence. Hopefully, there had been expert judgements given from both sides. For probably the wrong reasons, the judge is right in this case though, IMHO. Glyphosate did indeed pass required tests for carcinogenicity and the mechanism of action does not suggest carcinogenicity in general. Science has so far played a minor role in judgements around Glyphosate.
All this does not disprove carcinogenicity of Glyphosate (although it does disprove large effects) but the truth will not be determined in the current rounds of litigation.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 28 2024, @04:17PM
...that brings up the second problem. Government agencies that are in bed with these businesses in order to come up with a test that allows them to go to market with a toxic product while simultaneously shielding them from liability.
i.e. you can't sue "big pharma" in the United States as long as the drug is approved by the FDA.
(Score: 4, Informative) by quietus on Sunday July 28 2024, @04:44PM (1 child)
There's a difference in opinion there between the EU and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a subdivision within the WHO. The IARC states [europa.eu] that there is sufficient evidence to conclude that pure glyphosate causes cancer in animals, strong evidence that it causes DNA damage in both humans and animals, and limited evidence that it causes cancer in humans.
A 2021 report by the EU states that the cancer risk is negligible, but that study [europa.eu] was carried out by research departments in just 4 countries, 3 of which (the Netherlands, France and Hungary) have an important agricultural sector. That assessment was based on a dossier submitted by the Glyphosate Renewal Group. The dossier contained both a public literature review and studies by the members of the GRG itself, i.e. Albaugh Europe SARL, Barclay Chemicals Manufacturing Ltd., Bayer Agriculture bvba, Ciech Sarzyna S.A., Crop Alliance Unipessoal LDA., Nufarm GMBH & Co.KG, Sinon Corporation, Syngenta Crop Protection AG.
That report was double the normal size, and contains some oddities. On the one hand [europa.eu], "Active substances can pose hazards for human health."; on the other hand the claim is that the only risk is "serious eye damage". On the one hand, safe use could be demonstrated for operators and workers (both without personal protective equipment) and for bystanders; on the other hand, "except for one scenario in which due to a high predicted spray drift no safe use could be demonstrated." and "Based on the available ecotoxicological information glyphosate the current classification “Toxic to aquatic life with long lasting effects” (H411) should be retained.".
Further,
... or in other words, we've based our risk evaluation not on actual measurements in the field, but on theoretical lab values.
In any case, Bayer has already had to pay serious damages [reuters.com] in cases linking glyphosate to human cancers.
(Score: 4, Informative) by quietus on Sunday July 28 2024, @04:54PM
Additionally, possible link with Parkinson's [thelancet.com], and birth defects [www.rfi.fr].
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Sunday July 28 2024, @02:39PM
The Scopes Monkey trial was certainly conclusive proof of the value of the justice system in determining scientific truths.
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday July 29 2024, @03:21PM
Good to know it's safe.
Now I can go back to drinking my Agent Orange Juice for good health.
The Jupiter 2 is headed into a region of highly energized saran wrap.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by looorg on Sunday July 28 2024, @11:26AM (1 child)
Bayer says it's safe and fine. That is like hearing Phillip Morris say that smoking is good for you, and that they found no evidence to the contrary.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Monday July 29 2024, @03:31PM
When I was in 6th grade (early 1970s) Bayer was advertising against the common wisdom "all asprin is alike and works equally well."
Oh NOOOOO! Bayer tells us in a national advertising blitz. Bayer aspirin works better because, uh, um, their special buffering and . . . uh, the special magical pixie dust coating on their aspirin tablets.
It ended up in court. Ultimate outcome: Bayer had to say "WE LIED" and all aspirin in the same dose is equally ineffective.
The Jupiter 2 is headed into a region of highly energized saran wrap.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 28 2024, @01:03PM (6 children)
Incompetent lawyers or intentional setup (e.g. meant to lose and set precedent or deter others)? Why did they specifically target that ingredient instead of Roundup itself?
Roundup is not the same as glyphosate. It has more than just glyphosate.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/weed-whacking-herbicide-p/ [scientificamerican.com]
See also:
https://www.atraxialaw.com/news/unlisted-ingredients-roundup/ [atraxialaw.com]
https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/whatwestudy/topics/glyphosate [nih.gov]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Sunday July 28 2024, @04:24PM (5 children)
I almost guarantee the problem, if it's ever solved, is going to be like the pet food - melamine scandal.
Pet food is "mostly harmless" to pets. To save money some companies ground up melamine and added it to the pet food and killed many pets.
Likewise, glyphosate is biochemically almost certain to be harmless to anything that's not a plant unless you literally drown in it. Like if you drink so much that your pee or breath can kill weeds. However, in an infinitely large would there will be companies trying to save a buck whom use pure liquic dioxin or straight benzene or some damn thing to "save money" because of course glyphosate will get the blame LOLs while they get the fat pay checks.
Crazy fact, Glyphosate is odorless. If someone's spraying it and you smell anything, you're smelling god knows what, probably something way more toxic than glyphosate. Sort of like paint, sniffing paint is quite harmless there's dried paint all over the inside of my house that is very near odorless and seems harmless, although a continuous snort of paint THINNER fumes is extremely bad for your brain.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by quietus on Sunday July 28 2024, @04:52PM (4 children)
The Internets may say so, but that's not true -- I've worked with pure glyphosate in the 90s, and it does smell.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday July 28 2024, @07:43PM (3 children)
Well don't leave us in suspense, LOL... what did it smell like?
Its vapor pressure is close enough to zero that an open jar of dry crystals shouldn't evaporate away faster than it'll get covered by dust; however maybe if it's really warm etc.
I never messed with that in ochem lab, and apparently, you did, but every technical resource I look up claims its completely odorless... HOWEVER you can buy it as a sodium salt or other salts, which I bet are odorless, or if you buy as a monoammonium, I bet the breakdown products could smell very faintly like ammonia. The isopropylamine salt "should" smell vaguely ammonia-like also if it breaks down. Its not going to break down fast. But if you had a giant container and stuck your nose in it after a "long time" I bet it smelled faintly ammonia-like, from the ammonia.
If you figure water has a vapor pressure in the "meh twenties mm" at room temp and the data sheets say glyphosate is around 10-8 so figure it evaporates (sublimates) about a billion times slower than water. So I think it plausible an open jar would crust over with settled outside air dust before it sublimated away. In a fume hood maybe it would sublimate away but its gonna take awhile...
(Score: 2) by quietus on Monday July 29 2024, @04:31PM (2 children)
I've never seen them in salt form. What I used was a pure white liquid with high viscosity; the smell reminded of paint. To further dilute, distilled water was used.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday July 29 2024, @09:25PM (1 child)
It's a crystalline solid, although it's pretty soluble so they could have dissolved it in near anything.
Huffing the paint solvent fumes is very likely more dangerous than the glyphosate itself. Paint chems are probably a "good" idea for killing weeds; some kind of viscosity lowering stuff so its easier to spray and something that works into pores like a penetrating oil and maybe something to slow evaporation and probably some kind of interesting pH buffer to keep the above list happy; generally none of that stuff is good for people, of course.
(Score: 2) by quietus on Tuesday July 30 2024, @11:48AM
This was a project for Monsanto; as far as I can recall, you couldn't buy this product as an end-user. If there was a solvent used other than water, I should have known about that.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by srobert on Sunday July 28 2024, @07:09PM (1 child)
Monsanto would like for you to interpret the phrase "Not Proved to Cause" as "Proved Not to Cause". But their lawyers won't let them say that. The courts didn't actually say that. And the latter phrase has a very different meaning.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday July 28 2024, @08:01PM
Nothing can be proved not to cause in an absolute sense.
Only about 117 billion humans have ever lived and it's quite plausible that "something" we currently think safe kills 1 in a trillion people, and it will be some time indeed until we experience our first fatality proving that rate. Assuming perfect data, which of course we don't have.
You can statistically prove, however, that Australia has 26 million peeps and 800+ of them could not have been killed because that would imply an estimated death rate of 30 per million and its not showing up in other countries. Personally, I blame the infestation of Australian drop bears, a rather dangerous animal.
It would seem fairly trivial to calculate the diagnosis rate in Aus vs gallons of product sold, and compare that to every other country on the planet, seeing as there are quite a few that banned the product there are many "zero" count countries. For example, go to the global cancer observatory (weird name) and compare the lymphoma rate in the USA where we drink it like brits drink tea, to the rate in Aus, to the rates in Europe where its mostly banned. Incidence rates in all locations I've listed above seem to be around "15 ish" whereas use of the product seems to vary by a factor of millions. Just because an Italian lives in Italy where its banned doesn't mean they won't go tourist-mode and visit the USA and while here get a millionth the lifetime exposure an American would have. Or looking at it a more negative way, if the Italians incidence rate is "About 15" then the rate in the USA should be like 15 million or so. At least 15 thousand. Even 150 would be impressive. But, naah, its about 15, about the same as Italy. Clearly, banning the stuff isn't making Italians live any longer LOL.
If you want a real downer, and this is idle speculation not medical research, non-Hodgkin lymphoma might be one of those things like cataracts where if you live long enough you're getting it. The map of who it affects seems to just be a map of who lives into their 80s. With the odd exception of Peru. Don't know why they get it more often. Could be they use more product. Wait I googled and its banned in Peru. So rather than living longer they're dying younger. Hmm.