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Bayer hit with $332M judgement in Roundup cancer trial

fortune.com

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

#221

Post by lightedman »

tails4e wrote: post #111
dade_ wrote: 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.

The real concern is with the surfactants used with the glyphosate, not the glyphosate itself.

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

#222

Post by cainxinth »

abeppu wrote: post #17

The idea of punitive damages being awarded to a single person in a situation like this seems unjust on its own. If Roundup is responsible for this person's cancer, it's almost certainly responsible for the cancer of many other people, alive and dead. Clearly I am not a lawyer, but in cases of such a finding, I feel like there ought to be some mechanism to identify an affected class, and make proceeds benefit that cla…

The primary function of the U.S. civil judicial system is to adjudicate disputes, which is what it did here. Making society more just is an overarching, but ultimately, secondary goal.

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

#223

Post by kjkjadksj »

j-bos wrote: post #32
abeppu wrote: post #17

The idea of punitive damages being awarded to a single person in a situation like this seems unjust on its own. If Roundup is responsible for this person's cancer, it's almost certainly responsible for the cancer of many other people, alive and dead. Clearly I am not a lawyer, but in cases of such a finding, I feel like there ought to be some mechanism to identify an affected class, and make proceeds benefit that cla…

Generally the first plaintiff (attorney) takes the greatest risk as there's no precedent of guilt. Afterwards the class action suits ride the single case momentum towards relatively easy payouts.

Easy payouts of seventeen cents a complaint I’m sure

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

#224

Post by bluGill »

reducesuffering wrote: post #218
bluGill wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is in food in part per billion quantities. You don't get a cup over you lifetime.

You've got a source for that? Looks like ~0.75 pounds per acre and a 3k pound per acre yield for soybeans. Of course not all of that ends up inside the edible part, but 1/4,000 is a long ways from 1/1,000,000,000

Most of what is applied doesn't end up in food

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

#225

Post by josefx »

dathinab wrote: post #211
dehrmann wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised these judgements are happening. The science isn't really nailed down.

see no judgment happend when Monsanto was US owned but the Moment it was bought up by a non US company somehow judges flipped their opinion and even did ruling on non peer reviewed non fully published studies (which later turned out to fail to proof that it causes cancer...) nothing against banning this and similar roundups on suspicions of them being bad (actually I'm quite in favor of that) but whats happening ther…

> but the Moment it was bought up by a non US company somehow judges flipped their opinion and even did ruling on non peer reviewed non fully published studies (which later turned out to fail to proof that it causes cancer...)

During the same trials it came up that Monsanto at least believed that it had enough contacts to undermine any study it did not like. That probably also influenced what kind of studies the court accepted. You can hardly limit evidence to peer reviewed studies when the defendant outright said that they had full control over which studies would make it that far.

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

#226

Post by kjkjadksj »

throw3823423 wrote: post #147
BenjiWiebe wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There was an old patent about making generations completely infertile, but yes, never used. Bayer's corn seeds are optimized enough that, while the next generation grows just fine, the yield loss makes it not worthwhile over just buying new seed.

Its been that way for a lot of crops for almost a century at this point. This phenomenon is called hybrid vigor. Many things we grow are clonally propagated at this point to maintain these hybrid genetics.

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

#227

Post by kjkjadksj »

kmmlng wrote: post #192
pravus wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not telling you what to do, but I really wish this kind of thinking would stop. I've spilled concentrated round-up all over my arms and legs many times because I used it regularly as weed control all over my property in Texas. I've also been regularly exposed to all sorts of noxious chemicals like acetone, gasoline, diesel, various alcohols, and many different organic compounds in general. On bare skin (solvents…

This stuff is all about risk. If two people add their personal experiences, we have two data points. What are we supposed to do with that? It's not enough to quantify risk. You can do everything wrong and be completely fine or you can do a single thing wrong and suffer the consequences immediately. Those are the two extremes and then there will be a bunch of data points in between those extremes. What you want to pay…

And thats exactly the sort of analysis that has been performed to indicate no significant causal relationship here.

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

#229

Post by mikeiz404 »

gruez wrote: post #170
1letterunixname wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>the faithful adherents of organic production are more likely to be safer than industrial megafarming But the "organic" label doesn't check whether the farmers were "faithful adherents of organic production", only that they fulfilled the organic checklist. They can use as much chemical fertilizer and pesticides as they want, so long they're on the approved list. In the same vain farming and "industrial megafarming" i…

That list appears to be relatively restrictive:

- Bacillus subtilis

- Bacilus thuringiensis

- Beauveria bassiana

- Boric acid: Structural pest control, no direct contact with organic food or crops.

- Coniothyrium minitans

- Copper: Copper hydroxide, copper oxide, copper oxychloride, includes products exempted from EPA tolerance, provided that copper-based materials must be used in a manner that minimizes accumulation in the soil and shall not be used as herbicides.

- Copper sulfate: Application rates are limited to levels which do not increase baseline soil test values for copper over a timeframe agreed upon by the producer and accredited certifying agent.

- Corn gluten

- Cydia pomonella granulosis

- Diatomaceous earth

- Gibberellic acid

- Horticultural vinegar

- Hydrogen peroxide

- Lime sulfer: Including calcium polysulfide

- Minerals such as elemental sulfur, bicarbonate, or kaolin clay

- Myrothecium verrucaria

- Non-detergent insecticidal soaps: As a pesticide, fungicide, or algaecide for food crops

- Oils, including petroleum, vegetable, and fish oils: Types include dormant, suffocating, and summer oils

- Peracetic acid: For use to control fire blight bacteria. Also permitted in hydrogen peroxide formulations at a concentration of no more than 6% as indicated on the pesticide product label

- Pheromones and pheromone traps

- Plant-derived substances such as neem, caraway oil, seed fennel, quassia, or ryania

- Ryania/Ryanodine

- Sabadilla

- Spinosad

- Streptomycin sulfate and tetracycline

- Sticky traps

- Vitamin D3: As a rodencide

https://www.agdaily.com/technology/the-list-of-pesticides-ap...

See also https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/subtitle-B/chapter-I/su...

And the farms are re-certified annually to be in compliance.

To maintain organic certification, your certified organic farm or business will go through an annual review and inspection process.

https://www.ams.usda.gov/services/organic-certification/beco...

- More than 45,000 onsite inspections per year by certifying agents to monitor compliance with USDA organic standards. Every certified operation has at least one onsite inspection each year.

- Certifiers audited by USDA to make sure they are implementing the rules correctly.

- Residue testing program to verify that prohibited pesticides aren’t being applied to organic crops.

- Robust compliance and enforcement activities.

- Risk-based investigations based on operation size, complexity, geographic location or compliance history.

https://www.ams.usda.gov/services/organic-certification/orga...

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

#230

Post by projektfu »

LunaSea wrote: post #33
projektfu wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several tobacco companies would like if that were true.

How long after the dangers of smoking were known? Aren't these same companies owners of large vaping brands now btw?

How far do you want to move the goalposts?
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