Missouri Farmer Sues Monsanto and Wins $265 million

Missouri Farmer Wins $265 Million Verdict Against Monsanto

Jury finds that because of neighbors use of dicamba,

a peach farmer is going out of business

PHOTO BY JJ GOULIN/ISTOCK

BY CAREY GILLAM, Sierra Club

A Missouri peach farmer notched a rare courtroom victory this month, defeating the former Monsanto Co. and chemical giant BASF in the first of what is expected to be a series of court fights over claims that the companies are responsible for pesticide damage that has wiped out orchards, gardens, and organic farm fields in multiple states.

On February 14, a unanimous jury awarded Bill Bader and his family-owned Bader Farms $15 million in compensatory damages. The following day, they added on another $250 million in punitive damages to be paid by Bayer AG (Monsanto’s German owner) and BASF. The jury found that Monsanto and BASF conspired in actions that created what Bader’s attorney called an “ecological disaster” designed to increase profits at the expense of farmers such as Bader.

The verdict followed three weeks of documentary evidence and testimony introduced in US District Court in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. The evidence proved that Bader Farms suffered extensive damage to its peach business from dicamba, a herbicide sprayed by neighboring farmers that drifted into the Bader orchard. The dicamba did so much damage that the Bader farm is essentially being forced out of business due to the loss of 30,000 peach trees, according to Bader attorney Bill Randles. 

“It’s very sad,” Randles said in an interview with Sierra. “He’s been the ‘peach guy.’ Now . . . his peach farm cannot survive.”

The Bader lawsuit is one of many brought by farmers around the country blaming Monsanto and BASF for dicamba damage to their fields, gardens, and trees. Dicamba has been used by farmers for decades to kill weeds on their fields but historically was not sprayed during hot summer months because of the tendency of the herbicide to become volatile and drift long distances where it could kill non-targeted plants. 

Monsanto upended that caution when it introduced genetically engineered soybeans and cotton designed to tolerate a direct spray of dicamba. The company said fields planted with its new GMO crops could be sprayed with new dicamba formulations developed by Monsanto and BASF that would not drift away from the targeted fields. That meant farmers buying the GMO seeds could use the dicamba herbicides at will to help fight weeds even during the warm months of the season and not worry about harming a neighbor’s fields, the companies said. 

Monsanto announced in 2011 that it would work with BASF to introduce the new dicamba system because its “Roundup Ready” system, which was based on the use of glyphosate herbicides and glyphosate-tolerant crops, had led to an epidemic of glyphosate-resistant weeds.

Scientists warned that while the new system might work well for people buying the special seeds, it would threaten the production of farmers growing anything other than Monsanto’s GMO soybeans and cotton. Publicly, Monsanto and BASF scoffed at the concerns and assured regulators that their new dicamba cropping system would not create problems.

This was, I believe, Monsanto's plan all along, to make products that would kill almost everything, then invent seeds that are resistant to their products. That way they have control of the whole planting and weeding industry. 

What I don't understand is why Bayer was stupid enough to buy Monsanto in the first place.

But internal corporate communications introduced at trial by Randles showed that the companies secretly predicted there would be thousands of complaints about dicamba damage and even planned how to avoid liability. The documents also showed that the companies believed many cotton and soybean farmers would buy the special GMO seeds not because they wanted or needed the weed control but as a defensive measure against drift.  

“They knew they were going to hurt people, and they planned to make money off of it. It is that simple,” Randles said. “There were a lot of documents in which they privately acknowledged the harm they’re causing.” 

The jury largely agreed with the Bader Farms’s allegations, finding that Monsanto was negligent in distributing its GMO dicamba-tolerant seeds before new herbicides were released, which encouraged farmers to spray old versions of dicamba. The jury also found that Monsanto and BASF were negligent because even their new dicamba herbicide formulations drifted off target despite the companies’ representations that they would not. 

Bayer said that it would appeal the verdict and that there was “no competent evidence presented” attaching liability to Monsanto’s products. BASF said it was “surprised by the jury’s decision” and would join in the appeal. 

“BASF is convinced of the safety of its products when they are used correctly following the label instructions and stewardship guidelines,” the company said in a statement.

Lawsuits similar to Bader’s have been brought by roughly 140 farmers and have been combined as multidistrict litigation (MDL) in the federal court in Cape Girardeau. The same judge who oversaw the Bader trial, Judge Stephen Limbaugh, is overseeing the MDL. 

Randles said he is confident that the jury verdict will be upheld. 

“They’re going to pay. Can they stall it? Yes,” Randles said. “Can they overturn it? No.”

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.

EU Approval of Glyphosate Weed Killer was Based on ‘Plagiarized’ Monsanto Studies

© Reuters / Charles Platiau

EU regulators based a decision to relicense the controversial glyphosate-based Monsanto weed-killer on an assessment which was heavily plagiarized from agri-chemical industry reports, a cross party group of MEPs has revealed.

The MEPs commissioned the investigation after the Guardian reported that Germany’s Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) had copy-and-pasted tracts from Monsanto studies into its safety assessment for the weed killer. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) then based its recommendation that glyphosate was safe based on that very report.

And what's wrong with that? Are you suggesting Monsanto's own studies might possibly be slightly bias? C'est impossible! 

The results of the investigation were published just hours before a parliamentary vote on tightening scrutiny on the approval of pesticides. The cross-party report said that BfR had given the “deliberate pretence” of independent assessment, but in reality was “only echoing the industry applicants’ assessment.”

The scale of plagiarism was “extremely alarming” according to Green MEP Molly Scott Cato. The study found that more than 50 percent of the chapters were plagiarized, including whole pages of text.

Bayer, which bought Monsanto for $63 billion last year, is dealing with more than 9,300 lawsuits from people claiming that the company’s glyphosate-based weed killers caused their cancers. The World Health Organization has classified glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen.

Adding to the company’s woes, a French court on Tuesday decided to cancel the authorization to market RoundUp Pro 360, a Monsanto weed killer product which contains glyphosate. Filings showed that regional court in Lyon ruled to cancel the market authorization for the product, saying the approval, which had been granted by French environment agency ANSES in 2017, had not taken potential health risks into consideration.

The court said that “scientific studies and animal experiments” showed that RoundUp Pro 360 is a “potentially carcinogenic product for humans, suspected of being toxic for human reproduction and for aquatic organisms.” ANSES has not yet commented on the ruling. French President Emmanuel Macron had previously pledged to outlaw it completely in France by 2021.

Bayer has defended the product, however, citing other regulatory rulings which found glyphosate to be safe and the company is appealing a court decision in the US which awarded $78 million in damages to a plaintiff in California.

In 2018, two studies showed that the best-selling herbicide was showing up in food products for both humans and animals. Researchers at Cornell University found the substance in all 18 dog and cat food brands surveyed  — including one product which was certified as GMO-free.

The other study found glyphosate in all oat-based cereals and foods tested. One variant of Quaker Oatmeal Squares, for example, contained nearly 18 times the levels of glyphosate considered acceptable.

Except in Canada, eh! We just approved it for sale here. 

Glyphosate is off-patent and also marketed by dozens of other companies around the world.

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 Sued Again by Brazilian Soybean Farmers over GMO Seed

Monsanto - Agricultural Mafia?

Workers harvest soy in a farm in Brazil © Paulo Whitaker / Reuters

Growers in Brazil’s largest soybean producing state Mato Grosso have asked a court to cancel Monsanto’s Intacta GMO seed patent. They claim irregularities, including the company’s alleged failure to prove it brings de facto technological innovation.

The Mato Grosso branch of Aprosoja, the association representing the growers, has filed a lawsuit in a federal court in Brasilia. The growers claim Monsanto’s Intacta RR2 PRO patent “does not fully reveal the invention so as to allow, at the end of the exclusivity period, for any person to freely have access to it.”

That requirement “avoids that a company controls a technology for an undetermined period of time,” Aprosoja said, adding Intacta’s patent protection extends through October 2022.

It cited data from consultancy Agroconsult, saying that about 53 percent of Brazil’s soy area was planted with Intacta technology in the 2016/17 crop cycle. Around 40 percent of the crop is grown with Monsanto’s Roundup Ready seed technology (Intacta’s predecessor), and only seven percent is non-GM.

Brazilian farmers have been continually urging the replacement of genetically modified soybeans with non-GM seeds. Recently they asked Monsanto and other producers of pest-resistant corn seeds to reimburse them for money spent on additional pesticides when the bugs killed the crops instead of dying.

Several years ago five million Brazilian soybean farmers sued Monsanto, claiming the genetic-engineering company was collecting royalties on crops it unfairly claims as its own. In 2012, the Brazilian court ruled in favor of the Brazilian farmers, saying Monsanto owes them at least $2 billion since 2004.

After the legal disputes, Monsanto stopped collecting royalties linked to its first-generation Roundup Ready technology, and some farmers agreed to get a discount rate to use Intacta seeds.

Biotech crops are genetically engineered to resist pests or disease, tolerate drought or withstand the spraying of weedkillers like glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide.

In the US, the herbicide has been considered safe since 2013, when Monsanto received approval from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for increased tolerance levels for glyphosate. 

EPA needs to be gutted and run by people not in the industries it pretends to regulate.

However recently, the World Health Organization ruled it’s a carcinogen which along with other Monsanto chemicals could cause Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer’s disease, autism, and cancer.