Bayer Beware! Monsanto Found Guilty of Poisoning French Farmer

French cereal farmer Paul Francois © Reuters / Emmanuel Foudrot

A French court has ruled that US agrochemical firm Monsanto, currently owned by German drug company Bayer, was liable for the sickness of a farmer who inhaled fumes from a weed killer made by the company.

The 55-year-old cereal farmer Paul Francois said he has suffered neurological damage, including memory loss, fainting and headaches, after accidentally inhaling Monsanto’s Lasso weedkiller in 2004 while working on his farm. He accused the company of not giving sufficient safety warnings.

“Mr Francois justifiably concludes that the product, due to its inadequate labeling that did not respect applicable regulations, did not offer the level of safety he could legitimately expect,” the court said in its ruling.

Bayer AG, the German pharmaceutical company that acquired Monsanto last year, confirmed Thursday’s ruling. It said that was considering its legal options, including an appeal.

Bayer may need a few aspirin to get through the consequences of this ruling

“We are currently reviewing the decision of the court,” the company’s spokeswoman told the BBC.

The court in Lyon rejected Monsanto’s appeal on Tuesday but did not rule on how much it might have to pay. The compensation will be determined in a separate ruling. Meanwhile, Monsanto was ordered to immediately pay €50,000 for Francois’s legal fees. The farmer is seeking about €1 million ($1.1 million) in damages.

Interesting - the judge made sure the lawyers got paid immediately!

Francois has fought a decade-long legal battle against the firm. He had won rulings against Monsanto in 2012 and 2015 before France’s top court overturned the decisions and ordered the new hearing in Lyon.

“We are all happy to have won but it came at a heavy price,” Francois told reporters in Paris, adding: “It’s a big sigh of relief. It’s been 12 years of fighting, 12 years during which I had to put my whole life on hold.”

His lawyer Francois Lafforgue described the initial ruling as a “historic decision.” He said it was the first time a herbicide maker was “found guilty of such a poisoning.”

Lasso has been banned in France since 2007 and had already been withdrawn in some other countries.

Bayer Stock Sinks 12% After Court Rules Weed Killer It Bought from Monsanto Caused Cancer

Why Bayer, primarily a pharmaceutical company, bought Monsanto, an agrochemical company known for making Roundup and Agent Orange, is beyond my imagination. Agent Orange produced dreadful famine in Viet Nam and many horrible diseases in the people and in the soldiers who encountered it. 

Bayer's website makes this astonishing claim:

We exist to help people thrive - Advancing health and nutrition is what we do best and care about most.

© Global Look Press / Sven Hoppe

Bayer shares plunged more than 12 percent after a second US jury ruled that glyphosate-based Roundup weed killer causes cancer. It was a huge blow to the German pharmaceutical giant which bought US agrochemical firm Monsanto.

The stock drop during Wednesday morning trading on the Frankfurt exchange wiped out almost $8 billion from Bayer's market value.

The unanimous decision by a jury in San Francisco federal court followed another ruling made in August in California. Back then, the biotechnology corporation was ordered to pay $289 million in compensatory and punitive damages over the case of a school groundskeeper, Dewayne Johnson, whose cancer was allegedly caused due to years of using glyphosate-based Roundup.

The latest verdict was not a finding of Bayer’s liability for the cancer of plaintiff Edwin Hardeman. The trial is expected to proceed to the next phase, beginning on Wednesday, with the jury to determine the liability and damages in the case.

Bayer, which specializes in producing pharmaceuticals, consumer healthcare products, agricultural chemicals and biotechnology products, inherited the legal battles with its $63 billion acquisition of Monsanto, the US' leading producer of genetically engineered crops. Bayer may potentially face thousands of similar lawsuits in the US alone.

However, the German company has denied claims that glyphosate or Roundup causes cancer and said it was disappointed with the jury’s decision.

“We are confident the evidence in phase two will show that Monsanto’s conduct has been appropriate and the company should not be liable for Mr. Hardeman’s cancer,” Bayer said in a statement.

Good luck with that! I think you paid a fortune for a big liability.

Health Canada to Revisit Approval of Monsanto's Roundup

'Troubling allegations' prompt Health Canada review

of studies used to approve popular weed-killer

Gil Shochat · CBC News 

Health Canada says its scientists are reviewing hundreds of studies used during the approval process for glyphosate,

the active ingredient in Canada's most popular herbicide, Roundup.

Health Canada says in light of "troubling allegations," its scientists are reviewing hundreds of studies used during the approval process for glyphosate, the active ingredient in Canada's most popular herbicide, Roundup.

The decision comes after a coalition of environmental groups claimed Health Canada relied on studies that were secretly influenced by agrochemical giant Monsanto, the maker of Roundup, when it re-approved use of glyphosate in 2015 and confirmed that decision in 2017.

The coalition, which includes Equiterre, Ecojustice, Canadian Physicians for the Environment and others, says academic papers looking at whether the herbicide causes cancer were presented to Health Canada's Pest Management Regulatory Agency as independent, when in fact Monsanto had a hand in writing them.

At the time, Health Canada decided the risks of glyphosate to human health were acceptable, if used as directed in updated product labels. Now it's taking another look.

"Health Canada scientists are currently reviewing hundreds of studies to assess whether the information justifies a change to the original decision, or the use of a panel of experts not affiliated with Health Canada," the health agency told CBC-Radio Canada in an email response to the coalition's claims.

But Sidney Ribaux, the head of Equiterre, isn't satisfied.

He says Health Canada should launch an independent review immediately and suspend use of the herbicide, which is commonly applied to corn, soy, wheat and oats, as well as chickpeas and other pulses.

"This does not in any way meet our demands. Health Canada approved a dangerous product based ... on these studies."

Monsanto Papers

The coalition's contention that Monsanto had an uncredited role in producing some of the studies comes from court documents made public in the case of Dewayne "Lee" Johnson.

In August, a California jury ordered Monsanto to pay Johnson $289 million US in damages after the former groundskeeper alleged Roundup gave him non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a type of blood cancer.

He was diagnosed in 2014 at age 42.

A judge upheld the verdict last month, although Johnson's payout was slashed to $78 million US.

The documents filed in the case, including emails between Monsanto and scientific experts, have become known as the Monsanto Papers. The revelations they contain have received worldwide attention.

Plaintiff Dewayne 'Lee' Johnson, seen here during his trial on July 9, was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma

in 2014 at age 42. A former pest control manager at a San Francisco-area school district, he blames exposure

to glyphosate for his illness. (Josh Edelson/Reuters)

The coalition of Canadian groups says those documents prove that important scientific studies were either co-written or reviewed and edited by Monsanto without properly disclosing the company's role.

"Monsanto has been playing around with scientific studies," said Equiterre's Ribaux. "[It's] making these studies look like they are independent, when in fact they were written or heavily influenced by Monsanto.

"What we found is that some of these studies were key in the Government of Canada's decision to give a permit to Monsanto to continue selling glyphosate in Canada.

"Obviously this is very problematic."

In a statement to CBC, German-based Bayer AG which now owns Monsanto says it has an "unwavering commitment to sound science transparency" and did not try to influence scientific outcomes in any way.

The company says in each case where it sponsored a scientific article, that information was disclosed.

U.S. plaintiff calls for more testing

Lee Johnson, the plaintiff in the landmark American case, wants to see glyphosate research re-evaluated and expanded.

"Hopefully the conversation is big enough to where they have to do more testing, more research," Johnson told CBC-Radio-Canada in an exclusive interview during a recent visit to Toronto.

Johnson said he was thrilled to win his suit, but he knows his fight is far from over. He expects years of appeals.

 I'm not scared to die. You know, but if I have to die,

at least I'll die for something.

- Dewayne "Lee" Johnson

Bayer has already announced its intention to appeal the ruling. Bayer now faces more than 8,000 lawsuits in the U.S. over its glyphosate-based products.

In a post on its website last month, Bayer said it continues "to believe that the liability verdict and damage awards are not supported by the evidence at trial or the law."

The company told CBC-Radio Canada "its product is safe and has been used successfully for more than 40 years."

It also says there is an extensive body of research on glyphosate and glyphosate-based herbicides, including more than 800 studies required by regulators in Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere, that confirms these products are safe when used as directed.

Many government regulators, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2017, have determined there is no conclusive link between glyphosate and cancer.

But the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer concluded in 2015 that glyphosate is a probable carcinogen.

Johnson, who sprayed Roundup and a similar Monsanto product, Ranger Pro, as part of his job as a groundskeeper at a San Francisco Bay Area school district, says he has found a certain consolation in his struggle against Monsanto.

"I was there to defend the truth," he said. "I'm not scared to die. You know, but if I have to die, at least I'll die for something."

Monsanto to Face ‘Tribunal’ in The Hague for ‘Damage to Human Health and Environment’

It will be interesting to see how much Monsanto pays attention to this, and how much the American media will pay attention to it. My guess it, 'not much' on both counts.

© Mal Langsdon / Reuters

A global group of professionals, scientists and environmentalists – the Monsanto Tribunal – are preparing a trial for the GMO seed giant in The Hague. They say the crowdfunded action, determined to charge Monsanto with “ecocide,” is more than a symbolic move.

The Monsanto Tribunal’s goal is to research and evaluate all of the allegations made against Monsanto in connection to all the damages its products have caused to human health and the environment. It is scheduled to be held at The Hague from October 12 to 16 in 2016. The trial will wrap up on next year’s World Food Day.

One of the main goals the broad group of signees [ABOUT US] wants the tribunal to achieve is establishing “ecocide” as a crime. “Recognizing ecocide as a crime is the only way to guarantee the right of humans to a healthy environment and the right of nature to be protected,” The International Monsanto Tribunal says on its website.

The Tribunal will look into a range of charges, including what it says are Monsanto’s crimes against nature and humanity.

“The Tribunal will rely on the ‘Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights’ adopted at the UN in 2011. It will also assess potential criminal liability on the basis of the Rome Statue (Statute) that created the International Criminal Court in The Hague in 2002, and it will consider whether a reform of international criminal law is warranted to include crimes against the environment, or ecocide, as a prosecutable criminal offense, so that natural persons could incur criminal liability.”

Several bodies and groups are supporting the initiative, including the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), IFOAM International Organics, Navdanya, Regeneration International (RI), and Millions Against Monsanto, as well as dozens more farming and environmental groups.

The decision to proceed with the tribunal was announced by the groups shortly before the Sustainable Pulse report was published, which was part of the COP21 UN Conference on Climate Change that runs until December 11 in Paris.

“The time is long overdue for a global citizens’ tribunal to put Monsanto on trial for crimes against humanity and the environment. We are in Paris this month to address the most serious threat that humans have ever faced in our 100-200,000 year evolution—global warming and climate disruption,” the president of the Organic Consumers Association, Ronnie Cummins, said at the press conference.

Meanwhile, president of IFOAM and member of the RI Steering Committee Andre Leu accused Monsanto of ignoring the human and environmental damage created by its products. Leu added that the transnational is able to maintain its devastating practices “by lobbying regulatory agencies and governments, by resorting to lying and corruption, by financing fraudulent scientific studies, by pressuring independent scientists, and by manipulating the press and media.”

“Monsanto’s history reads like a text-book case of impunity, benefiting transnational corporations and their executives, whose activities contribute to climate and biosphere crises and threaten the safety of the planet,” Leu stressed.

The American-based company has enjoyed a good reputation in the US media and is known for its strong ties on Capitol Hill.

The Monsanto Tribunal argues that the company is responsible for the depletion of soil and water resources, species extinction, and declining biodiversity, as well as the displacement of millions of small farmers worldwide.

Farmers in certain countries have been taking these developments very hard. In India, an alarming wave of suicides tied to Monsanto’s practices has been registered among farmers.

Instead of traditional crops, farmers have been forced to grow GM cotton, which is more expensive and requires additional maintenance. In the last 20 years, this trend has driven some 290,000 farmers to commit suicide due to bankruptcy, according to India’s national crimes bureau records.

Subjecting Monsanto to real legal consequences will be a challenge, though, as the corporation has never lost a case.

The company is notorious for routinely suing farmers, which has earned it the reputation of a legal bully in the eyes of critics. According to Food Democracy Now, the GMO corporation has filed 145 lawsuits since 1997, because farmers had reused their seeds in a manner inconsistent with Monsanto policies. This even includes cases where the farmers themselves had sued Monsanto for the inadvertent cross-pollination of their organic crops with GMO seeds.

One lawsuit representing 300,000 farmers was thrown out of court – for the mere reason that the farmers had already been sued by Monsanto. According to Food Democracy Now, the judge called the farmers’ case “unsubstantiated.”

Untold damage has also been caused to the ecosphere by the dying-off of 970 million Monarch butterflies since 1990. The herbicides Monsanto sells eradicate a range of the prolific pollinators’ natural food sources. The statistic was released by the US Fish and Wildlife Service in February.

People demonstrated in over 400 major cities across the world in May to tell the GMO giant they do not want its produce in their food. It was the third global March Against Monsanto (MAM). 

Oakland Joins Long List of People and Cities Suing Monsanto

Oakland sues Monsanto for ‘long-standing contamination’ of

San Francisco Bay

© Robert Galbraith / Reuters
Agrochemical giant Monsanto knowingly contaminated Oakland’s storm water and the San Francisco Bay with a highly toxic chemical for decades, a new lawsuit filed by the California city claims. Oakland wants the company to pay for the environmental cleanup.

The State Water Resources Control Board determined that the presence of highly toxic polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs) in Oakland’s storm water threatens the San Francisco Bay’s ecosystem and interferes with the bay’s use and enjoyment by Californians, the city said in a statement.

PCBs were widely used for five decades to insulate electronics and were incorporated into paints, caulks and other building materials until they were banned by the US Environmental Protection Agency in 1979. Despite the 36-year prohibition, the chemicals are a common environmental contaminant in water and in the tissues of marine life all the way up the food chain to humans.

“Monsanto knew that PCBs were toxic and could not be contained as they readily escaped into the environment, finding their way into bays, oceans, lakes, rivers, streams, soil and air,” the statement read. “Although evidence confirms that Monsanto recognized that PCBs were becoming ‘a global contaminant’, well before the 1979 ban, it concealed this information and increased production of these profitable compounds.”

Oakland and Alameda County could be forced to spend $1 billion to remove PCBs from storm water flowing into San Francisco Bay, the city said. The lawsuit is asking Monsanto to bear the costs of cleaning up the contamination.

“The company that is responsible for this vast contamination should bear the burden of cleaning up our environment, not the taxpayers of Oakland and California,” City Attorney Barbara J. Parker said in a statement.

“Monsanto knew that its products posed a significant threat to human and environmental health around the world,” she added. “However, the company chose profits over protecting people, and American cities and citizens are still suffering the consequences.”

Monsanto choosing profits over people? Wow! What a shocker! Pfft!

Other California cities such as San Jose and San Diego have filed similar lawsuits against Monsanto, as has Spokane, Washington.

It would not be unprecedented for Oakland to win its suit. In May 2012, Swiss agrochemical group Syngenta AG was forced to pay $105 million to settle a class-action case that claimed the company knowingly poisoned hundreds of community drinking water systems across the United States with its weed killer atrazine.

The agrochemical giant has a history of poisoning and polluting. In February 2012, A French court ruled that Monsanto was guilty of unintentionally poisoning a French farmer with its chemicals, setting a French precedent for pesticide-poisoning. Two months later, farmers in Argentina sued the company, claiming it knowingly poisoned farmers after pressuring them to use Monsanto’s chemicals.

In November 2014, Monsanto was forced to pay $2.4 million to settle a lawsuit with US wheat farmers after its genetically engineered strain Roundup Ready, which was supposedly outlawed and scrapped a decade ago, was found alive and well in Oregon in 2013. It also settled seven other class-action suits over similar incidents without admitting any liability.

Monsanto also produced the infamous Agent Orange, an herbicide used during the Vietnam War that caused a myriad of illnesses and disabilities in people exposed to the chemicals, including thousands of US military personnel. In 2012, the company agreed to compensate residents of the West Virginia town where its Agent Orange plant was located. Under the settlement, Monsanto consented to pay $84 million for a 30-year monitoring program in Nitro, West Virginia and $9 million towards property clean-up efforts in still-contaminated cities.

The World Health Organization said that there was “convincing evidence” that glyphosate, a chemical in Roundup, causes cancer in lab animals, and classified the world’s most widely used herbicide as “probably” carcinogenic to humans in March. Monsanto immediately rejected the organization’s conclusions as ”a dramatic departure from the conclusion reached by all regulatory agencies around the globe.”

The company is currently involved in a lawsuit filed by two US agricultural workers at the end of September. They claimed that Roundup caused their cancers, and accused the biotech giant of pressuring regulators to downplay the risks from its herbicide.