weed killer

June 28, 2022

Guest column: The Roundup reckoning: Farmworkers win key glyphosate decision

Earlier this month, a court decision about a chemical called glyphosate garnered headlines in newspapers across the country. And rightly so: glyphosate is the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller. The pesticide is sprayed on roughly 285 million U.S. acres, and is so popular globally that it is the world’s most widely used herbicide.

For decades, Monsanto and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have assured us that glyphosate herbicides are safe. But those assurances have increasingly come under challenge by evolving science.

June 27, 2022

Supreme Court again rejects Bayer bid for review of Roundup loss

The US Supreme Court on Monday dealt another blow to Bayer AG’s effort to defend itself against ongoing litigation over allegations that Roundup herbicide causes cancer, denying the company’s request for a review of a California trial loss.

In declining to take up the case, the court let stand an $87 million award won by Alva and Alberta Pilliod. The jury originally ordered more than $2 billion in damages for the married couple, but the award was later cut by the court. Each of the Pilliods alleged they developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma after extensive use of Monsanto’s Roundup products.

June 9, 2022

Bayer wins latest Roundup cancer trial; tied 3-to-3 with plaintiffs for court wins

A Kansas City, Mo., jury on Thursday dismissed claims by a man who blamed his cancer on exposure to Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, agreeing with the company that the weed killer was not the source of the man’s disease.

The conclusion of the month-long trial gives Monsanto owner Bayer three courtroom wins in a row and brings the nationwide litigation battle to a 3-to-3 tie: the first three trial wins went to the plaintiffs’ side and the last three to the defense.

“The jury’s verdict in favor of the company brings this trial to a successful conclusion and is consistent with the evidence in this case that Roundup does not cause cancer…” Bayer said in a statement.

May 31, 2022

Monsanto’s former CEO testifies in Roundup trial, points to EPA safety findings

Former Monsanto chief Hugh Grant spent several hours on the witness stand on Tuesday – testifying for the first time in front of a jury at a Roundup trial – telling the court repeatedly that global regulators had found no evidence that the company’s herbicides cause cancer.

Under sharp questioning from the plaintiff’s attorney in the case, Grant answered questions about whether or not Monsanto had a duty to warn consumers of a cancer risk by saying there was no such established risk.

“The product had been examined and studied almost continuously for 40 years around the world and had never been deemed to be a carcinogen,” he said. “It’s a circumstance that never occurred. There was never, never a need to communicate such a hypothetical.”

During his 37 years at the company, Grant said: “The reality is that based on regulatory examination almost constantly during that entire period the product was never found to cause cancer.”

farmer-spraying-pesticide-royalty-free-image-1629408657

May 26, 2022

EPA backing of pesticide poses human health risks, groups allege

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is risking the health of farmworkers and other Americans by allowing continued widespread use of a highly toxic pesticide called paraquat that has been linked to Parkinson’s disease and other health problems, a coalition of advocacy groups alleged in court filings this week.

The group of eight organizations is challenging a 2021 EPA decision that the group’s allege violates federal law. They say the EPA failed to adequately account for the “magnitude” of the risks posed by paraquat use, and improperly determined that the benefits of paraquat for crop production outweigh the dangers to farmworkers and others.

May 10, 2022

Guest column: Syngenta’s paraquat product kills weeds, but also people

By Jon Heylings

From 1986 until 2008, I worked as the lead scientist on a project aimed at creating a “safer” paraquat-based weed killing product for what was then known as the ICI Central Toxicology Laboratory, which became part of Syngenta AG in 2000.

May 3, 2022

Monsanto on trial again – Missouri Roundup case begins

Nearly four years after the first-ever trial over allegations that exposure to Roundup herbicide causes cancer a new trial was underway on Tuesday, pitting a 34-year-old man suffering from non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) against Monsanto owner Bayer AG.

Allan Shelton, a lifelong resident of Kansas City, Mo., was diagnosed with NHL in May 2016, a little more than a year after international cancer scientists affiliated with the World Health Organization classified the active ingredient in Roundup, a chemical called glyphosate, as a probable human carcinogen.

April 18, 2022

Former Monsanto CEO could have to testify at upcoming Roundup trial

Former Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant lost his appeal to escape testifying at an upcoming trial over claims that the company’s Roundup herbicide causes cancer.

The Missouri Court of Appeals Western District on Friday denied Grant’s petition that sought to quash a subpoena compelling Grant to testify in person in the case of Allan Shelton v Monsanto. The trial of the civil suit is set to begin May 2 in Kansas City, Missouri.