Bayer/ Monsanto Was Ordered to Pay $2.25 Billion in Latest Roundup Case

Bayer acquired Monsanto in 2018. Bayer was ordered to pay $2.25 billion to a Pennsylvania man who said he developed cancer from exposure to the company’s Roundup weedkiller that contains glyphosate. The verdict included $2 billion in punitive damages to send a message that the company needs to change. Bayer plans to appeal. Bayer phased out sales of the household version of Roundup last year. Around 165,000 claims have been made in the US against the company for personal injuries — mainly non-Hodgkins lymphoma.  The company has paid out billions in various settlements in recent years.

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Roundup is a weedkiller that contains glyphosate, which researchers have called a “probable carcinogen.” Bayer says that studies show its product is safe, and the company will appeal the verdict.

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Bayer Ordered to Pay $1.56 Billion in Latest Trial for Claims that Roundup Caused Cancer

Cole County, Missouri: Biotech company Bayer was ordered to pay $1.65 billion to three plaintiffs who were diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma that they alleged was caused by using Roundup pesticide on their family property. Bayer purchased Monsanto in 2018 and maintains that Roundup is safe for human use. Bayer was found liable for not informing plaintiffs of the potential dangers of using the Roundup, along with claims of negligence and design defects.

The verdict was the fourth straight loss in court for Bayer, which has recently doled out more than $500 million in the previous three litigation losses. The company had been found not liable to plaintiffs in nine consecutive trials before that. In 2020, Bayer settled most of the then-pending Roundup cases for up to $10.9 billion. 

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Bayer was ordered to pay $1.56 billion to four plaintiffs after a Missouri judge ruled that the company’s Roundup weedkiller caused cancer.

A Cole County, Mo., jury found on Friday that Bayer’s Monsanto business was liable for claims of negligence, design defects and failing to warn plaintiffs of the potential dangers of using Roundup, according to court documents.

Valorie Gunther of New York, Jimmy Draeger of Missouri and Daniel Anderson of California were awarded a combined $61.1 million in compensatory damages and $500 million each in punitive damages.

Each of the plaintiffs was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma that they alleged was caused by using Roundup on their family property.

Draeger’s wife, Brenda, was also awarded $100,000 for the harm she allegedly suffered from her husband’s disease.

The plaintiffs argued that exposure to the glyphosate in Roundup caused the cancer, which typically starts in white blood cells and causes symptoms including enlarged lymph nodes, fatigue, dramatic weight loss, trouble breathing and night sweats, according to the Mayo Clinic.

A County Cole, Mo., judge on Friday found that the glyphosate chemical found in Roundup led to a cancer diagnosis in three people: Valorie Gunther of New York, Jimmy Draeger of Missouri and Daniel Anderson of California. REUTERS

Roundup, the most widely-used herbicide to kill weeds in the US, reportedly contains 41% glyphosate, which Bayer has repeatedly argued is safe for human use.

“The court’s verdict is not just a triumph of justice; it’s a clarion call to Bayer, making it clear that no entity can escape accountability. This is the first of many victories as we continue to seek justice for thousands of innocent victims,” said Bart Rankin, partner at Forrest Weldon which represented the plaintiffs.

Representatives for Bayer told The Post in an emailed statement: “We have strong arguments to get the recent unfounded verdicts overturned. We won nine of the last 13 trials and the majority of claims in this litigation are resolved. The company remains fully committed to defending the robust scientific and regulatory evidence in future trials and appeals.”

Shares of the German-based drugmaker slid more than 18% on Monday to their lowest in 12 years.

On Sunday, Bayer announced it had to abort a large late-stage trial testing a new anti-clotting drug due to lack of efficacy, throwing its most promising development project in doubt.

Friday’s verdict was the fourth straight loss in court for Bayer, which has recently doled out more than $500 million in the previous three litigation losses.

The company had been found not liable to plaintiffs in nine consecutive trials before that.

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Bayer/ Monsanto to Settle 125,000 Claims for $10.9 Billion

Bayer AG, which bought out Monsanto in 2018 for $63 billion, has agreed to pay up to $10.9 billion to settle 125,000 claims against its weedkiller, Roundup, because it causes cancer. Ken Feinberg, who was appointed settlement mediator by a federal judge, said that, after the 25,000 claims still unsettled are resolved, there will be no more trials. Incredible as it may seem, the Environmental Protection Agency continues to claim that glyphosate does not cause cancer. Therefore, the company will continue to sell the weedkiller and will not add a cancer warning to the product label. In summary: This settlement will put a stop to all future claims no matter how many deaths are involved. -GEG

  • On Wednesday, Bayer AG agreed to pay up to $10.9 billion to settle thousands of US lawsuits claiming that its weedkiller Roundup causes cancer
  • Between $8.8 billion to $9.6 billion will resolve the current Roundup litigation and $1.25 billion will be paid to resolved future litigation 
  • A chemical called glyphosate is the main ingredient and has been listed by the World Health Organization and California as cancerous
  • Hundreds have claimed that Roundup led to them each being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer that starts in white blood cells 
  • Multiple plaintiffs in California have won cases in court and Bayer has been ordered to pay them millions of dollars 

Bayer AG has agreed to pay up to $10.9 billion to settle thousands of US lawsuits claiming that its widely-used weedkiller Roundup causes cancer.

The German drug and pesticide maker says it has come to terms with about 75 percent of the 125,000 filed and unfiled claims overall, according to a statement published on Wednesday.

An additional $1.25 billion will be paid to resolve future litigation.

The news comes after years of talks, resolving lawsuits that has pummeled the company’s share price.

Under the agreement, Bayer will pay $8.8 billion to $9.6 billion to resolve the current Roundup litigation, including an allowance expected to cover unresolved claims.

The settled cases over Roundup and other glyphosate-based weedkillers account for about 95 percent of those currently set for trial, it added.

‘The Roundup settlement is the right action at the right time for Bayer to bring a long period of uncertainty to an end,’ Bayer CEO Werner Baumann said in a statement. 

‘It resolves most current claims and puts in place a clear mechanism to manage risks of potential future litigation. 

‘It is financially reasonable when viewed against the significant financial risks of continued, multi-year litigation and the related impacts to our reputation and to our business.’ 

Ken Feinberg, who was appointed settlement mediator by a federal judge more than a year ago, said that while nearly 25,000 claims remained unsettled there will be no more trials as cases settle in coming months.

‘Bayer wisely decided to settle the litigation rather than roll the dice in American court,’ said Feinberg.  

The litigation has mostly swirled around Roundup’s main ingredient, a chemical compound called glyphosate.

Glyphosate is marketed either as a salt or an amber-colored liquid with no smell.

Its original maker, Monsanto, introduced it in 1974 as an effective way of killing weeds while leaving crops and plants intact.

Bayer acquired Monsanto in 2018 in a $63 billion deal.

Glyphosate-based products are sold in more than 160 countries, and farmers use it on 250 types of crops in California alone, which is the leading farming state in the US.

In March 2015, the World Health Organization found that that the herbicide is ‘probably carcinogenic to humans’. 

Then, in 2017, California named glyphosate an ingredient that causes cancer under the state’s Proposition 65, which requires Roundup to carry a warning label if sold in California.

But, in April 2019, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reaffirmed that glyphosate does not cause cancer.

However, several plaintiffs have alleged that Roundup caused their non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer that starts in the white bloods cells.

Edwin Hardeman, of Windsor, California, sued in federal court in February 2016 and was awarded $80 million, later reduced to $25 million.

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85,000 Lawsuits Against Monsanto and Bayer for Illness and Death from Roundup may be Settled for $10-Billion


The number of lawsuits against the manufacturers of Roundup weed killer, Monsanto and Bayer, has ballooned to 85,000 after the companies lost three cases that led to enormous settlement awards. Bayer purchased Monsanto in 2018 for $63-billion, and its value has dropped 45% since the sale. Six new cases were scheduled but have been put on hold as Monsanto/Bayer is hoping to settle all present and future cases for $10-billion. Bayer faces more litigation tied to Monsanto. A rash of US states and cities have filed lawsuits claiming the company polluted dozens of bodies of water decades ago with its use of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Monsanto has spent more than $1-billion to resolve PCB claims. -GEG

German pharmaceutical giant Bayer and its embattled CEO remain at risk because of the tens of thousands of lawsuits claiming that Roundup weedkiller causes cancer, but there are reasons for optimism, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Here’s why:

– Bayer may be on the verge of a deal that would pay in the range of $10 billion for current and future plaintiffs who allege the company’s Roundup herbicide causes cancer, which analysts say would be positive for Bayer. Bayer lawyers have said the company will set aside $8 billion to resolve current cases and reserve $2 billion for future claims, five people with direct knowledge of the negotiations reportedly have said.

– Optimism about a possible settlement has pushed shares of Bayer up about 50% from a seven-year low in June.

– Bayer CEO Werner Baumann, who survived a no-confidence vote by shareholders in April, has worked to restore confidence among employees after a drop in morale. For example, he held video town halls to reassure staff each time the company faced a new legal setback in the U.S., the Journal reported, citing a “mid-level executive.” “Last year people talked about the lawsuits all the time, now it’s mostly business as usual,” the person said

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Canada: Lawyers Launch $500 Million Class-Action Lawsuit Against Monsanto/ Bayer, the Manufacturer of RoundUp Weed Killer

A Canadian law firm, representing 60 plaintiffs who allege that RoundUp weed killer caused their illnesses that include cancer, has filed a $500 million class-action lawsuit against pharmaceutical company Bayer, the owner of Roundup manufacturer, Monsanto. The plaintiffs are looking for financial compensation and “behaviour modification” in the form of large settlements to discourage other companies from bad business practices. In the United States alone, there have been about 18,000 lawsuits filed against the makers of Roundup.

Weed killer contains herbicide glyphosate, alleged to cause cancer

Diamond & Diamond, a national personal injury law firm in Canada, is spearheading a $500 million class-action lawsuit against various Roundup makers, including pharmaceutical company Bayer, the owner of Roundup maker Monsanto.  

Roundup is a weedkiller that contains glyphosate, a herbicide chemical often used by homeowners to treat their lawns. 

There have been many lawsuits filed across North America alleging that glyphosate can cause health problems including non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a type of cancer that affects the lymphatic system.

In the United States alone, there have been about 18,000 lawsuits filed against the makers of Roundup.

Diamond & Diamond is calling this Canada’s largest class-action lawsuit against Roundup makers. There are currently more than 60 individuals named as plaintiffs, but the firm said they believe thousands may have been affected.

This year, there have already been lawsuits against Roundup manufacturers filed in B.C., Quebec, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. This one would be the first class action in Canada and follows the likes of class-action lawsuits filed in the U.S.

Darryl Singer, the head of commercial and civil litigation at Diamond & Diamond, said the plaintiffs involved in this class-action lawsuit are looking not only for financial compensation, but also what he calls “behaviour modification” so that the same thing doesn’t happen again in the future with other products in Canada.

“If there’s not these lawsuits that force companies like Monsanto to write these big cheques, they have no incentive to change the way they do business,” Singer said.

Singer said the plaintiffs have also been diagnosed with other forms of cancer, like brain and lung cancer, and some of his clients are acting on behalf of an estate. 

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Jury Returns an $80 Million Blowout Verdict Against Roundup Glyphosate Weed Killer, Owned by Bayer AG


Bayer AG bought Monsanto and the company has lost a second trial over claims that its Roundup weed killer causes cancer. Bayer has been ordered by a San Francisco jury to pay compensatory damages of $5.3 million and punitive damages of $75 million to Edwin Hardeman, 70, who was diagnosed with cancer after spraying the herbicide on his property for 26 years. The verdict follows a similar decision last August in which a former school groundskeeper was awarded $289 million after claiming that Roundup gave him non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Bayer, is facing more than 9000 similar lawsuits across the US.

Bayer AG has lost a second trial over claims that its Roundup weed killer causes cancer – and has been ordered by a San Fancisco jury to pay compensatory damages of $5.3 million and punitive damages of $75 million to a 70-year-old California man, Edwin Hardeman, who was diagnosed with cancer after spraying the herbicide on his property for decades. 

The plaintiff’s attorneys said he developed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma after 26 years of regularly using Roundup to tackle weeds and poison oak, according to the Wall Street Journal. The active ingredient in Roundup and Ranger Pro is glyphosate, a herbicide.

Wednesday’s verdict follows a similar decision last August in which a former school groundskeeper was awarded $289 million after claiming that Roundup gave him non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. 

German Bayer AG acquired the Roundup brand of glyphosate weed killers in its $66 billion purchase of Monsanto in June of last year. 

Responding to the verdict, Bayer said in a statement “We are disappointed with the jury’s decision, but this verdict does not change the weight of over four decades of extensive science and the conclusions of regulators worldwide that support the safety of our glyphosate-based herbicides and that they are not carcinogenic.”

“You can’t keep trying case after case after case and keep losing and
say, ‘We’re not going to settle,” said Thomas G. Rohback, a trial
lawyer at Axinn in New York quoted by Bloomberg, who adds that if Bayer continues to lose at trial, it “has to put the possibility of a settlement of these cases into the mix.

Wednesday’s case is considered a “bellwether” trial for hundreds of other plaintiffs in the US with similar claims, which
means the verdict could affect future litigation and other cancer
patients and families. Monsanto, now owned by the German pharmaceutical
company Bayer, is facing more than 9,000 similar lawsuits across the US.

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RoundUp Weed Killer Found in 19 Out of 20 Leading Beer and Wine Brands in the US


RoundUp, the pesticide that contains the controversial ingredient glyphosate rhat has been linked to cancer, was detected in 19 out of 20 leading alcoholic beverages that were tested. The beer brands included Coors Light, Miller Lite, Budweiser, Corona, Heineken, Guinness, Stella Artois, New Belgium, Sierra Nevada and Samuel Adams, and the wine brands were Beringer, Sutter Home, Barefoot, Inkarri and Frey Vineyards. The levels detected were below limits set by the Environmental Protection Agency, but critics still believe it is harmful. Bayer, which now owns RoundUp manufacturer Monsanto, is currently facing some 9,300 lawsuits alleging that its popular glyphosate-based weed killer RoundUp.

  • A study by research group US PIRG tested five wines and 15 beers for glyphosate
  • Beer
    brands included Coors Light, Miller Lite, Budweiser, Corona, Heineken,
    Guinness, Stella Artois, New Belgium, Sierra Nevada and Samuel Adams
  • Wine brands were Beringer, Sutter Home, Barefoot, Inkarri and Frey Vineyards 
  • The herbicide used in Roundup was detected in 19 of the 20 beverages tested 
  • Glyphosate, the world’s most common herbicide, is suspected of causing cancer
  • All of the glyphosate levels were well below limits imposed by the EPA 

Traces
of a controversial weed killer have been detected in a number of the
world’s leading beer and wine brands, a new report claims.  

In
a study by public-interest advocacy group US PIRG that tested five
wines and 15 beers, including organic ones, the chemical glyphosate was
found in all but one of the beverages sampled.  

Glyphosate
– the most common herbicide in the world and an ingredient in the weed
killer Roundup – is a probable human carcinogen, according to the
International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health
Organization.

The report acknowledged
that the levels detected were below limits set by the Environmental
Protection Agency, but PIRG the results warrant some degree of public
concern.

‘The levels of glyphosate we
found are not necessarily dangerous, but are still concerning given the
potential health risks,’ PIRG told USA TODAY
following the release of the study, which looked at popular brands
including Coors Light, Miller Lite, Budweiser, Corona, Heineken and
Samuel Adams.

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California Man Accepts $78 Million Award in RoundUp Glyphosate Weed Killer Lawsuit

Dewayne Johnson, who has been diagnosed with a case of terminal non-Hodgkin lymphoma, has agreed to accept a $78 million settlement after a judge slashed the jury’s original award of $289 million.  The poison-producing company says it plans to appeal, and claims that Johnson developed cancer before using Roundup.  Lawyers for Johnson claim that Monsanto was aware of the medical risks posed by its glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup, but covered it up through a campaign of misinformation and attacks on studies that proclaimed the dangers.  Johnson’s case was the first to directly connect Roundup with deadly cancer. Bayer, which acquired Roundup earlier this year, faces about 8,000 more lawsuits.

A case that raised questions about what the maker of Roundup knew about the dangers of its popular Roundup product has turned a new page. Dewayne “Lee” Johnson has agreed to accept a $78 million settlement after a judge upheld the jury’s original ruling but slashed the civil case’s $289 million award.

Johnson’s case was the first to directly connect Roundup with deadly cancer. Bayer, which acquired Roundup earlier this year, faces about 8,000 more lawsuits, according to Reuters.

The company says it plans to appeal.

In August, Judge Suzanne Bolanos lowered the punitive damages from $250 million to $39 million, the same amount awarded for compensatory damages. Bolanos gave Johnson and his attorneys until Dec. 7 to either accept the new amount or ask for a new trial, a call they answered this week. At the time, Bolanos said she was considering eliminating the entire $250 million in punitive damages because she said there was no compelling evidence that Monsanto ignored evidence that Roundup caused cancer. In the end, Bolanos decided to honor the jury’s ruling and instead lowered the amount of punitive damages.

It was an outcome DeWayne Johnson’s family wasn’t sure he would see in person.

Lawyers for Johnson focused their efforts on proving Monsanto suppressed evidence that its Roundup herbicide has cancer-causing properties. Opening statements began in San Francisco on July 9.

Johnson’s attorney said Monsanto took away his client’s freedom to choose, reported KGO. “If you don’t give someone a choice and somebody gets hurt or, God forbid, gets cancer, then I personally believe and I think you will as well that you should be responsible for the consequences of that,” attorney Brent Wisner said.

“I don’t think it’s a surprise that after 20 years, Monsanto has known about the cancer-causing properties of this chemical and has tried to stop the public from knowing it,” said attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Monsanto argued that Johnson developed cancer before using Roundup. “The scientific evidence is overwhelming that Glyphosate-based products do not cause cancer and did not cause Mr. Johnson’s cancer,” said defense attorney George Lombardi. “The single most relevant study — best study, study of human beings who, like Mr. Johnson, are licensed pesticide applicators — concluded glyphosate is not associated with Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Mr. Johnson’s cancer.”

Weeding out the truth

DeWayne Johnson, 46, worked as a groundskeeper for the Benicia Unified School District in California from 2012 to 2015. In that role, he sprayed Roundup herbicides on school properties. Johnson was healthy when he started the job, but in August 2014, he received a diagnosis of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL).

By January 2018, Johnson’s body was 80 percent covered in lesions, according to the deposition of his physician; he is often unable to speak or leave his bed, despite a new treatment he started in January. At the time, his doctors thoughts he might only have months to live.

Johnson’s lawsuit alleged that Monsanto’s product caused his cancer, and that Monsanto was aware of the medical risks posed by its glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup, but covered it up through a campaign of misinformation and attacks on studies that proclaimed the dangers.

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RoundUp Glyphosate Weed Killer May Produce a Bacteria-Killing Antibiotic Effect in the Human Gut


Farmers in the US, UK and Canada are spraying herbicides to desiccate crops which kills the plants and uniformly dries them out, making them easier to cut and harvest.  Glyphosate, also known as RoundUp, is the most common desiccant.  In 1974, global use of glyphosate was 3,200 tons per year. It is expected to reach 1 million tons per year by 2020.  A 2015 study by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency found glyphosate in 30% of 3,200 food products.  Similar studies have found glyphosate exceeding maximum residue limits (or MRLs) in Cheerios, beer, and wine.
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Evidence shows that glyphosate is very toxic, and court documents suggest Monsanto covered up the harmful health effects of the poison on humans, especially links to cancer.  Desiccants kill more than plants. Herbicides like glyphosate also kill bacteria, and can act like “antibiotics.”  Human gut bacteria are sensitive to antibiotics, which is why we should avoid eating herbicides. When microbes are disturbed, diseases like obesity, Alzheimer’s, or celiac disease can result.
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Neither the EPA nor Health Canada consider herbicides as antibiotics. This means that their safety assessments do not consider effects on human gut microbes.  Plus, there is other stuff in herbicides, including petroleum byproducts, neurotoxins, and endocrine disruptors, that are dangerous for both animals and microbes.  Choose organic instead.

Driving down a grid road in central Saskatchewan, a machine that looks like a giant insect approaches me in a cloud of dust. The cab, hanging 8 feet above the road, is suspended by tires at least 6 feet tall, with wing-like appendages folded along each side. Should I drive around it or under it?

It is harvest season, and the high-clearance sprayer is on its way to desiccate a field. Desiccation may be the most widespread farming practice you’ve never heard of. Farmers desiccate by applying herbicide to their crops; this kills all the plants at the same time, making them uniformly dry and easier to cut. In essence, desiccation speeds up plant aging. Before desiccation, crops would have to dry out naturally at the end of the season. Today, there are examples of desiccation being applied to every type of conventional crop in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom.1 Chances are that most of what you ate today was harvested using a desiccant, but you’d never know.

The future: A fleet of combines harvests a field of desiccated peas on the Shewchuk farm near Saskatoon. The uniform senescence of the crop has made it dry, causing the combines to kick up chaff and dust as they work.Miranda Hart

Mike Shewchuk jumps down from his swather as I pull into his farmyard. He is a young farmer whose blond brush cut and a robust stride would have not been out of place 50 years ago. Along with his dad, uncles, and brother, he farms 15,000 acres an hour outside of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. They recently received a century farm award, for having continuously farmed the land since the early 1900s.

He is in the middle of a cut, and asks if I would mind riding with him as we talk. I climb up beside him on a small fold-down seat.

Swathers are giant lawn mowers farmers use to cut crops. The cut plants are left to dry on the ground before combining. It can be tricky knowing when to cut. If you start too early, you’ll get too many green seeds. Depending on the crop, that might lead to early germination (wheat) or self-combustion (canola). But if you wait too long, you may be scraping your seeds off the ground after the snow melts.

I doubt that I’ll be able to tell which fields had been desiccated. But the shriveled, brown peas are in stark relief to the green fields around it.

Swathing is quickly going out of fashion, as most farmers desiccate to ripen their crops. One of the big agro-chemical companies even has a marketing campaign with the hashtag #sellyourswather, encouraging farmers to desiccate and ditch swathing altogether. I asked Mike why he hadn’t sold his swather yet.

He laughs. “We’re not desiccating canola, and canola is paying the bills right now.”

For many farmers, that is changing. Until recently, farmers did not desiccate canola because it “shattered” the seedpods, shedding the seeds in soil. But breeders have been busy: In 2017, five new varieties of shatter-resistant canola were released in Canada. That will make desiccation viable for Canada’s second-most common crop, and accelerate a trend that began around 10 years ago, when desiccation started to become popular.

Not coincidentally, it was also around then that herbicide use spiked. When you sit down to eat dinner today, there will probably be desiccant in your food.

There are thousands of ways to kill a weed. You can starve it, bleach it, mess with its proteins. You can feed it fake hormones. You can force it to make acid so that it disintegrates from within. There are more than 400 licensed weed killers, or herbicides, in Ontario alone. And we love to use them. Canadians used more than 58,000 tons in 2014, compared with only 21,000 tons in 1994. Our landscape, and our crops, have never been so saturated.

Our thirst for herbicides is partly due to GMOs like RoundupReady corn, soy, and canola. These herbicide-tolerant crops came on the market in the late 1990s, and changed the farming landscape by making it possible to control weeds by using herbicides on crops still in the field.

Herbicide resistance explains part of the increase in herbicide use around the world over the past decades. If you blast a weed with herbicide, eventually its cells become resistant. Farmers are left with fields of weeds they can’t kill. This is what happens in people, with antibiotic resistant bugs. Faced with resistant weeds, farmers double down, spraying even more and using multiple herbicides. But desiccation accounts for a significant part of the growth in herbicide use. It’s impossible to say precisely how much, because stats are tracked for herbicide use by crop—not by usage type.

In theory, anything that kills a plant can desiccate a crop, but farmers can only use herbicides that are licensed as desiccants. In practice, there are only a few that are regularly used.

Glyphosate is increasingly used as, or with, desiccants. It’s sold under the trade name RoundUp, and is the most commonly used herbicide in the world, as well as the most commonly used desiccant. In 1974, global use of glyphosate was 3,200 tons per year. It is expected to reach 1 million tons per year by 2020.1 In the U.S., the rate of growth has been accelerating. Between 1995 and 2004, glyphosate use grew by 356 percent. Between 2005 and 2014, it grew by 637 percent.2

Glyphosate works by interrupting protein synthesis in plants, rendering them unable to photosynthesize. It is also considered relatively safe for humans. But in 2015 the World Health Organization (WHO) declared it a possible carcinogen, on the basis of an independent survey of the scientific literature. Outrage from governments and industry around the world fueled a reanalysis by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and WHO, which concluded in 2016 that it was “unlikely to pose a carcinogenic risk to humans through diet.”

Industry, and farmers, breathed a sigh of relief. The reports analyzed, however, did not consider the increase in exposure to glyphosate via desiccation. This practice has dramatically increased the dissemination of glyphosate into the environment, and into us.

There have been no explicit tests of the effect of desiccation on our microbiome.

I asked Sheri Roberts, a crop specialist with Agriculture and Agrifood Canada in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, whether she thought desiccation was safe. She was reluctant to make the call, but said she wished it was not so commonly used. “The timing’s really tight,” she said. “If you don’t get it just right, that herbicide ends up in the grain.” If farmers apply a non-contact herbicide (like glyphosate) too early, it will be taken up by the growing plant and end up inside the seed. Non-contact herbicides are taken up by the living plant and incorporated into still growing tissues, while contact herbicides kill the tissues they touch.

A 2015 study by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency found glyphosate in 30 percent of 3,200 food products.3 Similar studies have found glyphosate exceeding maximum residue limits (or MRLs) in Cheerios, beer, and wine.4,5 MRLs are the allowable concentration of herbicides on food crops. Health Canada and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) come up with MRLs by feeding rats or dogs herbicide until an effect is observed. The figures are important for trade: If countries have different MRLs, shipments can be rejected. In 2011, the European Union rejected a shipment of Canadian lentils because MRLs were 40 times the EU limit. Alternatively, countries can use MRLs to negotiate a lower price, or raise their MRLs in response to industry pressure.

According to the EPA, between 1993 and 2015, glyphosate MRLs increased by 100 percent to 1,000 percent in the U.S., depending on the crop. Desiccation has changed the game: Because we are using more herbicides, herbicide residues and MRLs have also gone up.  Countries can use MRLs as a bartering tool to negotiate lower prices, and will raise their MRLs in response to pressure. Monsanto and other manufacturers of glyphosate have requested increases in MRLs, and been granted many of them.2

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Monsanto Slammed with $289 Million Verdict in Historic ‘RoundUp’ Cancer Lawsuit

San Francisco: Monsanto was handed a stunning jury verdict of $289-million in a lawsuit by Dewayne Johnson, who is suffering from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and says Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller gave him terminal cancer. Naturally, Monsanto will appeal the verdict, but this could become a precedent-setting case leading to further attempts to make Monsanto accountable for the illnesses caused by its products. There are an estimated 2,000 more cases like this in state courts and hundreds more in federal courts. -GEG

Summary by JW Williams

A San Francisco Jury awarded $289-million in damages to a former school groundskeeper, Dewayne Johnson, who said Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller gave him terminal cancer. Mr. Johnson applied the pesticide up to 30 times per year, and now suffers from non-Hodgkins lymphoma. As much as 80% of his body is covered with lesions. Monsanto says it will appeal the verdict. Monsanto is a subsidiary of Germany’s Bayer AG, which bought the agrochemical company in June for $66-billion.

Johnson’s case was the first to be heard, with 2,000 similar cases pending in Missouri, Delaware, and California courts. There are hundreds of more cases waiting to be heard in federal court pending a ruling to determine if there is sufficient evidence for a jury to hear the cases.

Monsanto says the EPA, the US National Health Institute, and health regulatory authorities around the world have declared their products to be safe. However, documents uncovered last year led to questions about Monsanto’s efforts to influence the news media, to rig scientific research, and to hide data that revealed serious health hazards of their flagship product, RoundUp pesticide.

Read full article here…