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Monsanto ordered to pay $289M damages in Roundup cancer trial

bbc.com

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Re: Monsanto ordered to pay $289M damages in Roundup cancer trial

#31
post #27
post #2

I vaguely remember watching an interview with an exec from Monsanto saying RoundUp was perfectly safe, safe enough to drink. Then immediately refusing to drink it when offered, because of course it's poison.

not defending monsanto here, but this particular argument is garbage. your urine is safe to drink - will you do it in front of me on camera right now?

[deleted]

Re: Monsanto ordered to pay $289M damages in Roundup cancer trial

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the scientific consensus Uhh. You mean the lack of consensus. Which is bought and paid for by Monsanto. When it comes to their own products, they outspend any independent studies by orders of magnitude in order to create enough noise for there to be a lack of consensus long enough to make a profit. It's straight out of the tobacco industry playbook.

Not sure if it causes cancer or not, but this is like a security hole in the scientific process (ie mostly only the company that produces X will fund studies of X). It's interesting to think security holes more generally - Nick Szabo got me thinking along these lines with his recent pinned tweet: "Giant companies are the security holes of capitalism. The more centralized industries get, the more they attract socialis…

That’s one way to look at it. Big companies attract activists and so are a risk for capitalism.

Another way would be that big companies do the most damage to the most people’s lives, and are a risk for humanity.

Re: Monsanto ordered to pay $289M damages in Roundup cancer trial

#33
post #2

I vaguely remember watching an interview with an exec from Monsanto saying RoundUp was perfectly safe, safe enough to drink. Then immediately refusing to drink it when offered, because of course it's poison.

Wow, Monsanto is pretty good at SEO. Here's the first result that came up for a search of the video: https://i.imgur.com/JiZjlVL.png

Re: Monsanto ordered to pay $289M damages in Roundup cancer trial

#34
post #27
post #2

I vaguely remember watching an interview with an exec from Monsanto saying RoundUp was perfectly safe, safe enough to drink. Then immediately refusing to drink it when offered, because of course it's poison.

not defending monsanto here, but this particular argument is garbage. your urine is safe to drink - will you do it in front of me on camera right now?

For $289 million? ;)

Re: Monsanto ordered to pay $289M damages in Roundup cancer trial

#36
post #26

A useful thing to know about this case is that the plaintiff took pains not to base their case on the carcinogenicity of glyphosate, but rather of Roundup, which is less than half glyphosate. During their opening statement, any time they referenced a study about about glyphosate, they'd say "but remember that study only looked at glyphosate, not Roundup, and as we all know, more than half of Roundup is other stuff".…

another useful thing to know about this case is that monsanto was found to be malicious and intentional with regard to their obfuscation of the issue.

pray tell, why would a legitimate scientific inquiry need to be malicious and attempt to obfuscate contradictory research?

Re: Monsanto ordered to pay $289M damages in Roundup cancer trial

#37
post #4

> Mr Johnson's lawyer, Brent Wisner, said the jury's verdict showed that the evidence against the product was "overwhelming". Uhhh to say that is quite the stretch, a jury of layman should judge the scientific consensus? The referenced International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) report is anything but conclusive. That verdict speaks more to the widespread uninformed FUD against GMO. https://www.iarc.fr/en/medi…

> Uhhh to say that is quite the stretch, a jury of layman should judge the scientific consensus?

Who else is going to do it? Either a judge or a jury needs to determine the facts of a case if there's a dispute over the facts.

Re: Monsanto ordered to pay $289M damages in Roundup cancer trial

#38
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The presecution claims it's not the active ingredient but the whole herbicide that's cancer causing. I think the studies are only on one of the ingredients, not on the whole herbicide? Also, questions of exposure are not addressed here. This person was drenched in it couple of times by accident. If I use rat poison for my job vs have it rubbed or consumed in different doses, results can be quite different. Monsanto c…

> The presecution claims it's not the active ingredient but the whole herbicide that's cancer causing. I think the studies are only on one of the ingredients, not on the whole herbicide? Yes, the claim neatly was crafted to render all the systematically gathered evidence only tangentially relevant, so what you are left is a lay jury deciding what they feel is more probable (the civil standard being a mere preponderan…

[deleted]

Re: Monsanto ordered to pay $289M damages in Roundup cancer trial

#39
Whether the guilty verdict is ultimately upheld will probably be decided in a higher court. But this company sure has a dubious track record with previous hazardous substances that were in their product line:

> The company once manufactured controversial products such as the insecticide DDT, PCBs, Agent Orange and recombinant bovine growth hormone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto

Re: Monsanto ordered to pay $289M damages in Roundup cancer trial

#40
post #26

A useful thing to know about this case is that the plaintiff took pains not to base their case on the carcinogenicity of glyphosate, but rather of Roundup, which is less than half glyphosate. During their opening statement, any time they referenced a study about about glyphosate, they'd say "but remember that study only looked at glyphosate, not Roundup, and as we all know, more than half of Roundup is other stuff".…

So Monsanto were selling a dangerous pesticide and intentionally obfuscating its effects. It doesn't matter what part of the composition was toxic in this context. It's not pertinent in the real world whether gyphosate or something else was toxic, the substance in question is Round Up. If you're trying to have a debate about the merits of glyphosate that's a different subject. I think I linked you to the emails from the discovery for this case in another thread, where the scientists involved clearly knew that something was toxic and were scrambling to discover what at the same time that their superiors were scrambling to cover it up.
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