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Bayer hit with $332M judgement in Roundup cancer trial

fortune.com

131–140 of 255 posts

Re: Bayer hit with $332M judgement in Roundup cancer trial

#131
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very frequently? These chemicals are benign and the media and activists have been scaring people for decades without justification. The fact that their arguments are often convolved with arguments against lawns and lawncare should give you a better sense of their true motives. I'm shocked Bayer lost and that the plaintiff was awarded anything. Glyphosate has not been shown to cause cancer. If it had, such literature…

Roundup isn’t glyphosate. It’s full of glyphosate, yes. But it’s not glyphosate. It also doesn’t always break down. Depends on if it binds with anything.

Seems like a distinction without a difference:

"Glyphosate is a broad-spectrum systemic herbicide and crop desiccant. It is used to kill weeds, especially annual broadleaf weeds and grasses that compete with crops. Its herbicidal effectiveness was discovered by Monsanto chemist John E. Franz in 1970. Monsanto brought it to market for agricultural use in 1974 under the trade name Roundup."

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

Re: Bayer hit with $332M judgement in Roundup cancer trial

#132
post #2

People look at you like you're crazy if you tell them you avoid oats, grains, nuts that are particularly heavy in glyphosate.

There are a bunch of wheat free people who have no problem eating wheat in Europe. Nobody knows why, some people suspect Monsanto is why.

Re: Bayer hit with $332M judgement in Roundup cancer trial

#133
post #2

People look at you like you're crazy if you tell them you avoid oats, grains, nuts that are particularly heavy in glyphosate.

They probably do not have that high concentration on seeds itself. The problem is that it thousands of tons need to be dispersed on the environment and its effect as an antibiotic on big scale. We have a very important microbiota that are bacteria themselves. The antibiotics on meat and environment can break havoc there, specially for people that work or live near those environments and can breathe or drink the pesti…

Our digestive tracts aren’t fond of detergents either, and Roundup contains some. For that matter, so do the pods you use in your dishwasher, which is something that just came onto my radar recently. Are HE dishwashers removing enough detergent residue during the rinse cycle? Possibly not.

Re: Bayer hit with $332M judgement in Roundup cancer trial

#134
post #44

The most dangerous surface in a farm is the farmer’s hat I was told. So they wear the hat in the sun, tilling the fields, but the reason the hat is dangerous is from spraying the fields. Pesticides and herbicides are downright scary chemicals, and we genetically modify crops to improve tolerance of these chemicals. And that is when I went all GMO free, not because I am worried about eating grain that has modified gen…

Shit. I remember clearly spraying roundup out of a backpack sprayer on a calm day, when a stray gust of wind blew some of the spray back up and into my face. I often wonder if I inadvertently sealed my fate despite that level of exposure being so brief. It was about 5 years ago,so far so good.

Much of the time, cancer risk with these chemicals is based of some level of exposure over time.

It’s people using it all day every day that are at a high risk of cancer. One blow back in to the face probably won’t do much more than cause some irritation.

Re: Bayer hit with $332M judgement in Roundup cancer trial

#135
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that as of 2023: 1. Glyphosate is one of the more heavily studied chemicals known to man. 2. The evidence for it causing cancer is poor. Studies routinely fail to find evidence for it. 3. The subset of studies that do find evidence for such a link, find it in occupational exposure , by people who have been working knee-deep in it for decades. [1] Yes, people probably should look at you like you're crazy, becaus…

> people probably should look at you like you're crazy, because you're extrapolating People who claimed that UK government gave them AIDS, on purpose, were called crazy. 50 years later, it turns out they were right. "The blood was imported from the US after a UK shortage, where people such as prisoners could donate in return for cash. The minutes ..shows that officials knew that haemophiliacs were being given dangero…

Or that orange shit they used to put in microwave popcorn.

Re: Bayer hit with $332M judgement in Roundup cancer trial

#136
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

our understanding of DNA is pretty basic. I’d say we’re using a hatchet to do surgery. Did she make any reference to studies?

Yes, but I’m texting her to get info. I’ll update here, but it’ll probably take a while. Probably shouldn’t have said anything, but I was hopeful that there might be another plant molecular biologist in the audience who could clear things up.

I am anlso interested in this topic. Thanks

Re: Bayer hit with $332M judgement in Roundup cancer trial

#137
post #2

People look at you like you're crazy if you tell them you avoid oats, grains, nuts that are particularly heavy in glyphosate.

Most people lack subject matter expertise on topics they espouse opinions impertinently, don't look at the evidence, and don't take sensible precautions against unknowns, so their opinions don't matter. In the absence of compelling precautionary evidence and systematic safety processes, it's clear that the faithful adherents of organic production are more likely to be safer than industrial megafarming done with the s…

At work we have a term for the people who completely dismiss the opinions of laypeople who have to use what they produce.

We call them assholes. Or fucking assholes, depending on the degree.

Re: Bayer hit with $332M judgement in Roundup cancer trial

#138
post #44

The most dangerous surface in a farm is the farmer’s hat I was told. So they wear the hat in the sun, tilling the fields, but the reason the hat is dangerous is from spraying the fields. Pesticides and herbicides are downright scary chemicals, and we genetically modify crops to improve tolerance of these chemicals. And that is when I went all GMO free, not because I am worried about eating grain that has modified gen…

Round-Up Ready and Terminator Seeds are two of the sickest inventions that humans have ever dreamed up. The idea of engineering seed so that new seed which comes from its crop will not germinate is just beyond wicked and evil. But we've had that for something like a quarter century now. $332M seems like peanuts.

Wikipedia claims (not very current claims though) that terminator seeds are not commercially available?

They are different than the common case of infertile hybrids, which have good reason to exist and the infertility (IIUIC, not a botanist) is a side effect.

Re: Bayer hit with $332M judgement in Roundup cancer trial

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roundup isn’t glyphosate. It’s full of glyphosate, yes. But it’s not glyphosate. It also doesn’t always break down. Depends on if it binds with anything.

Seems like a distinction without a difference: " Glyphosate is a broad-spectrum systemic herbicide and crop desiccant. It is used to kill weeds, especially annual broadleaf weeds and grasses that compete with crops. Its herbicidal effectiveness was discovered by Monsanto chemist John E. Franz in 1970. Monsanto brought it to market for agricultural use in 1974 under the trade name Roundup. " https://en.wikipedia.org/w…

It’s a distinction without a difference if you’re trying to reuse the tobacco playbook and you need people to be confused long enough for your bonus checks to clear.

Re: Bayer hit with $332M judgement in Roundup cancer trial

#140
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reforming how class actions are done is probably a very good idea. But Bayer has a market capitalization of over 45 billion. This judgement will probably get appealed and negotiated down. And if it isn't, there is a lot of value in Bayer to pay out in a class action if one succeeds.

If by "reform" you mean weaken class actions, I would argue that is a bad idea. Larger businesses have already gone to great lengths to eliminate / curtail class actions. I'd argue that this weakening is the root cause of a chunk of the aggregate problems I see discussed on HN. It is in a company's interest to harm a great many people a little bit because the people often have to challenge the company as individuals…

In other countries this is addressed by government regulation. The US prefers to use class action lawsuits and punitive damages.
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