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Jury: Monsanto to pay $2 billion in weed killer cancer case

TU Curmudgeon

TU Curmudgeon

B.A. (Sarc), LLb. (Lex Sarcasus), PhD (Sarc.)
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From Associated Press

Jury: Monsanto to pay $2 billion in weed killer cancer case
​

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A jury on Monday ordered agribusiness giant Monsanto Co. to pay a combined $2.055 billion to a couple claiming that the company’s popular weed killer Roundup Ready caused their cancers.

The jury’s verdict is the third such courtroom loss for Monsanto in California since August, but a San Francisco law professor said it’s likely a trial judge or appellate court will significantly reduce the punitive damage award.

The state court jury in Oakland concluded that Monsanto’s weed killer caused the non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma Alva Pilliod and Alberta Pilliod each contracted. Jurors awarded them each $1 billion in punitive damages in addition to a combined $55 million in compensatory damages.

Alberta Pilliod, 76, said after the verdict that she and her husband, Alva, have each been battling cancer for the last nine years. She says they are unable to enjoy the same activities they participated in before their cancer diagnosis.

COMMENT:-

Since both of the plaintiffs (in this case) are in their mid to late 70s, the odds that the plaintiffs will still be alive when Monsanto runs out of legal appeal running room to the point where it actually has to fork out a dime range between non-existent and less than non-existent.

However, now every person who has ever used Round-up will be beating a path to the door of a lawyer to initiate their own law suit.

Look for Monsanto to "undergo reorganization under the protection of Chapter 11" within weeks.

PS - This jury award is roughly 50% of the total 2018 budget for the state of Delaware.
​
 
Monsanto is now owned by Bayer

I also expect this and the other judgement's against glyphosate to be taken to the SC especially as the EPA just declared it as safe (re-declared)
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
Monsanto is now owned by Bayer

I also expect this and the other judgement's against glyphosate to be taken to the SC especially as the EPA just declared it as safe (re-declared)
Click to expand...
How much are the regulators paid off by companies like Monsanto? This is what happens when you have politicians owned by corporations.
 
Ahh... Trump's EPA will probably have the whole thing reset by reclassifying Roundup as a Energy Drink.
 
TU Curmudgeon said:
From Associated Press

Jury: Monsanto to pay $2 billion in weed killer cancer case
​

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A jury on Monday ordered agribusiness giant Monsanto Co. to pay a combined $2.055 billion to a couple claiming that the company’s popular weed killer Roundup Ready caused their cancers.

The jury’s verdict is the third such courtroom loss for Monsanto in California since August, but a San Francisco law professor said it’s likely a trial judge or appellate court will significantly reduce the punitive damage award.

The state court jury in Oakland concluded that Monsanto’s weed killer caused the non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma Alva Pilliod and Alberta Pilliod each contracted. Jurors awarded them each $1 billion in punitive damages in addition to a combined $55 million in compensatory damages.

Alberta Pilliod, 76, said after the verdict that she and her husband, Alva, have each been battling cancer for the last nine years. She says they are unable to enjoy the same activities they participated in before their cancer diagnosis.

COMMENT:-

Since both of the plaintiffs (in this case) are in their mid to late 70s, the odds that the plaintiffs will still be alive when Monsanto runs out of legal appeal running room to the point where it actually has to fork out a dime range between non-existent and less than non-existent.

However, now every person who has ever used Round-up will be beating a path to the door of a lawyer to initiate their own law suit.

Look for Monsanto to "undergo reorganization under the protection of Chapter 11" within weeks.

PS - This jury award is roughly 50% of the total 2018 budget for the state of Delaware.
​
Click to expand...

Monsanto, now owned by Bayer, is one of the most evil entities in the world. I'm surprised they're not selling their Round-up resistant soybeen seeds in China yet.
Or maybe they are, now that they're foreign-owned.
 
Organo-phosphates are relatively safe and non-persistent. It's water soluble thus it degrades, dilutes and travels without difficulty. It does not bio-accumulate or bio-magnify.

Compared to some other pesticides we use, it's not scary.

But here's the problem. Crops are genetically modified to resist organophosphates. This - in theory - allows for the use of less pesticide. The idea is that the ability to spray post emergence (after the crop appears) means one can spray less and at more opportune times to get the maximum effect. Unfortunately, as reality would have it, farmers take this as a green light to spray whenever and however they want. Instead of focused post emergence mitigation, we get haphazard over-application.

I suspect it's the improper use of the product resulting in many of the problems.

I suspect Monsanto will be able to point at mutagens and teratogens and say, "what do you have to say about those".
 
TrueScotsman said:
How much are the regulators paid off by companies like Monsanto? This is what happens when you have politicians owned by corporations.
Click to expand...

The issue with Glyphosate is that in all nearly all farm workers, landscapers are exposed to it on a regular basis and has been for decades. The people who manufacture it, package it are exposed to it as well. It is probably the most commonly used herbicide in the US and Canada. Heck they find traces of it in breakfast cereals.

To attribute some peoples cancer to it, while others with similar or higher levels of exposure did not get cancer makes the judgement's against Monsanto unjust, especially with most scientific rulings saying it is safe when used as instructed. There are far worse pesticides out there than Glyphosate, these types of lawsuits will cause companies to go out of business, and then reduce the yield drastically produced on farms
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
The issue with Glyphosate is that in all nearly all farm workers, landscapers are exposed to it on a regular basis and has been for decades. The people who manufacture it, package it are exposed to it as well. It is probably the most commonly used herbicide in the US and Canada. Heck they find traces of it in breakfast cereals.

To attribute some peoples cancer to it, while others with similar or higher levels of exposure did not get cancer makes the judgement's against Monsanto unjust, especially with most scientific rulings saying it is safe when used as instructed. There are far worse pesticides out there than Glyphosate, these types of lawsuits will cause companies to go out of business, and then reduce the yield drastically produced on farms
Click to expand...

Those other pesticides don't come with genetic modification that says "spray whenever you want".

It's not all organophosphates on trial here. It's Glyphosate.
 
Grand Mal said:
Monsanto, now owned by Bayer, is one of the most evil entities in the world. I'm surprised they're not selling their Round-up resistant soybeen seeds in China yet.
Or maybe they are, now that they're foreign-owned.
Click to expand...

China would not likely agree to the licensing deals that Monsanto typically requires. Nor would Monsanto trust the courts in China to enforce the licensing deals against Chinese farmers
 
Grand Mal said:
Monsanto, now owned by Bayer, is one of the most evil entities in the world. I'm surprised they're not selling their Round-up resistant soybeen seeds in China yet.
Or maybe they are, now that they're foreign-owned.
Click to expand...

Lord Tammerlain said:
China would not likely agree to the licensing deals that Monsanto typically requires. Nor would Monsanto trust the courts in China to enforce the licensing deals against Chinese farmers
Click to expand...

China has its own GMOs. This isn't stealth tech.
 
ecofarm said:
China has its own GMOs. This isn't stealth tech.
Click to expand...

Yes I know

China is a large user of pesticide products and a large producer of the chemicals for them. It probably produces more glyphosate than Monsanto does, but not licensed for Round Up ready crops in most cases
 
ecofarm said:
Organo-phosphates are relatively safe and non-persistent. It's water soluble thus it degrades, dilutes and travels without difficulty. It does not bio-accumulate or bio-magnify.

Compared to some other pesticides we use, it's not scary.

But here's the problem. Crops are genetically modified to resist organophosphates. This - in theory - allows for the use of less pesticide. The idea is that the ability to spray post emergence (after the crop appears) means one can spray less and at more opportune times to get the maximum effect. Unfortunately, as reality would have it, farmers take this as a green light to spray whenever and however they want. Instead of focused post emergence mitigation, we get haphazard over-application.

I suspect it's the improper use of the product resulting in many of the problems.

I suspect Monsanto will be able to point at mutagens and teratogens and say, "what do you have to say about those".
Click to expand...

Thanks for the information. I will keep using it but there is a big push to get it banned in CA. (of course, right?) :roll:
It was probably coincidental that the married couple ended up with the same kind of cancer OR as you said, they didn't read the directions before using.
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
Yes I know

China is a large user of pesticide products and a large producer of the chemicals for them. It probably produces more glyphosate than Monsanto does, but not licensed for Round Up ready crops in most cases
Click to expand...

I'm sure China has organophosphate resistant GMOs. And their own brand of such pesticide to go with it, perhaps named Better Glyphosate. And they have a Bt producing splice. And they have leguminous splice. And they use them all in massive quantity.

There's nothing we have that they don't in agricultural tech. China steals military tech. How difficult would infiltrating a university ag program be? I've seen the IPR security for GM crops; they try to take themselves seriously.
 
I don't have any allegiance to Monsanto, but this award is pretty bonkers. Why not just award them a hundred quadrillion dollars?
 
ecofarm said:
I'm sure China has organophosphate resistant GMOs. And their own brand of such pesticide to go with it, perhaps named Better Glyphosate. And they have a Bt producing splice. And they have leguminous splice. And they use them all in massive quantity.

There's nothing we have that they don't in agricultural tech. China steals military tech. How difficult would infiltrating a university ag program be? I've seen the IPR security for GM crops; they try to take themselves seriously.
Click to expand...

Chemchina, a large Chinese chemical company owns Syngenta, a large pesticide producer with a significant investment in GM crops, so yes China has access to GM crops and of course the techniques and methods to do so. Chinese students have been going into STEM university courses for decades, and I am sure learned many of the methods to do so through that as well

In North America, Monsanto has been very vigorous in defending it licensing agreements regarding Round Up Ready crops. Including sampling farmers fields to see if they have are using Round Up ready crops without having either paid the license or bought the seeds
 
trixare4kids said:
Thanks for the information. I will keep using it but there is a big push to get it banned in CA. (of course, right?) :roll:
It was probably coincidental that the married couple ended up with the same kind of cancer OR as you said, they didn't read the directions before using.
Click to expand...

There comes a point when a warning label is insufficient. This is a pesticide that can be sprayed with the crop in field because the crop is genetically modified to resist the pesticide. It's a combo.

It's not a severe carcinogen. I bet all the cases are GMO farmers and none are landscapers. Then again, I had a landscaper take Sevin lightly last month, so who knows what they do.


Neat story:

A village in the developing world was having problems with pesticide poisoning. Farmers thought they were careful and still it was out of control wildfire cancer rates. And it wasn't just the farmers, meaning the men applying pesticide to cash crops (women generally tend garden crops and those don't rate cash input), whole families were getting cancer.

Not merely organophosphate, something horrible. Iirc it was South America, perhaps 40 years ago.

So this researcher and his team come up with an idea to track the pesticide. They put a dye that glows under UV in the pesticide. When farmers came home, the team lit them up and the farmers could see their accidental exposure. Then into the house. Glowing everywhere. It had got on the clothing then to the house then in the house then on the chairs and tables. But it was invisible before.

Well, when those men saw what they were doing to their families, attitudes about safety changed.

I went out of my way in my travels to visit the lead researcher of that project to congratulate him personally.
 
ecofarm said:
...
Click to expand...

I read a story not too long ago about residential spray techs getting cancer and they have numerous cases against Monsanto. The case alleges these people have marked higher incidences of cancer than would be expected.
 
Verax said:
I read a story not too long ago about residential spray techs getting cancer and they have numerous cases against Monsanto. The case alleges these people have marked higher incidences of cancer than would be expected.
Click to expand...

Those tanks leak all over people. It's a mild carcinogen. People don't worry. Perhaps the case's greatest service is making people aware not to take organophosphates lightly.
 
ecofarm said:
There comes a point when a warning label is insufficient. This is a pesticide that can be sprayed with the crop in field because the crop is genetically modified to resist the pesticide. It's a combo.

It's not a severe carcinogen. I bet all the cases are GMO farmers and none are landscapers. Then again, I had a landscaper take Sevin lightly last month, so who knows what they do.


Neat story:

A village in the developing world was having problems with pesticide poisoning. Farmers thought they were careful and still it was out of control wildfire cancer rates. And it wasn't just the farmers, meaning the men applying pesticide to cash crops (women generally tend garden crops and those don't rate cash input), whole families were getting cancer.

Not merely organophosphate, something horrible. Iirc it was South America, perhaps 40 years ago.

So this researcher and his team come up with an idea to track the pesticide. They put a dye that glows under UV in the pesticide. When farmers came home, the team lit them up and the farmers could see their accidental exposure. Then into the house. Glowing everywhere. It had got on the clothing then to the house then in the house then on the chairs and tables. But it was invisible before.

Well, when those men saw what they were doing to their families, attitudes about safety changed.

I went out of my way in my travels to visit the lead researcher of that project to congratulate him personally.
Click to expand...
What an awesome research project. Many kudos to the researcher! :thumbs:
 
Evil company. I hope they go bankrupt, frankly.
 
TU Curmudgeon said:
From Associated Press

Jury: Monsanto to pay $2 billion in weed killer cancer case
​

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A jury on Monday ordered agribusiness giant Monsanto Co. to pay a combined $2.055 billion to a couple claiming that the company’s popular weed killer Roundup Ready caused their cancers.

The jury’s verdict is the third such courtroom loss for Monsanto in California since August, but a San Francisco law professor said it’s likely a trial judge or appellate court will significantly reduce the punitive damage award.

The state court jury in Oakland concluded that Monsanto’s weed killer caused the non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma Alva Pilliod and Alberta Pilliod each contracted. Jurors awarded them each $1 billion in punitive damages in addition to a combined $55 million in compensatory damages.

Alberta Pilliod, 76, said after the verdict that she and her husband, Alva, have each been battling cancer for the last nine years. She says they are unable to enjoy the same activities they participated in before their cancer diagnosis.

COMMENT:-

Since both of the plaintiffs (in this case) are in their mid to late 70s, the odds that the plaintiffs will still be alive when Monsanto runs out of legal appeal running room to the point where it actually has to fork out a dime range between non-existent and less than non-existent.

However, now every person who has ever used Round-up will be beating a path to the door of a lawyer to initiate their own law suit.

Look for Monsanto to "undergo reorganization under the protection of Chapter 11" within weeks.

PS - This jury award is roughly 50% of the total 2018 budget for the state of Delaware.
​
Click to expand...
Yep, that was clear from the hoards of slip and fall lawyers running ads ...

Sent from my SM-T587P using Tapatalk
 
j-mac said:
Yep, that was clear from the hoards of slip and fall lawyers running ads ...

Sent from my SM-T587P using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Would you slap my wrist if I suggested that a more appropriate headline would have been

Porsche Dealers Rejoice at Jury Award​
 
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