Saturday, August 11, 2018

Monsanto Slammed With $289 Million Verdict In Historic ‘RoundUp’ Cancer Lawsuit


Picture: www.topmastersinhealthcare.com/


In a case that could halt the development of GM crops around the world, and thus the push by a few global corporations to gain control of the food supply, a court San Francisco this week awarded $289 million in damages to a former school groundskeeper, Dewayne Johnson, whose lawyers claimed Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller gave him terminal cancer. The award consists of $40 million in compensatory damages and $250 million in punitive damages.

Johnson’s trial was fast-tracked due to the severe state of his non-Hodgkins lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph system he says was triggered by Roundup and Ranger Pro, a similar glyphosate based herbicide that he was a=obliged by his job to use up to 30 times per year. His doctors didn’t think he’d live to live to see the verdict.

Johnson told the court that he had been involved in two accidents during his work in which he was soaked with the herbicide. The first of these occurred in 2012. Two years later, the 46-year-old father of two was diagnosed with lymphoma – which has since covered as much as 80% of his body in lesions.


Dewayne Johnson listens in court to evidence in his lawsuit against Monsanto

Monsanto says it will appeal the verdict.

“Today’s decision does not change the fact that more than 800 scientific studies and reviews — and conclusions by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. National Institutes of Health and regulatory authorities around the world — support the fact that glyphosate does not cause cancer, and did not cause Mr. Johnson’s cancer,” Monsanto Vice President Scott Partridge said in a statement.

Monsanto is now a subsidiary of Germany’s Bayer AG, which closed on its $66 billion purchase of the agrochemical company in June.

On Tuesday, Johnson’s attorney Brent Wisner urged jurors to hold Monsanto liable and slap them with a verdict that would “actually change the world” – after arguing that Monsanto knew about glyphosate’s risks of cancer, but decided to ignore and bury the information.
According to a report in The Guardian, Johnson’s lawsuit against is the first such case against Monsanto to complete the full trial process over allegations that the chemical sold under the Roundup brand is linked to cancer. Thousands have made similar legal claims across the United States. Many of these are still tied up in the labyrinthine procedures of the American justice system and many other complainants have either run out of money or simply given up.

The Johnson case focused on the chemical glyphosate, the world’s most widely used herbicide, which Monsanto began marketing as Roundup in 1974. The company began by presenting it as a “technological breakthrough” that could kill almost every weed without harming humans or the environment. –SHTFplan.com

In September, 2017 the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) concluded that glyphosates were not likely carcinogenic to humans, based on a decades-long study. In 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO)’s cancer arm issued an opposite statement – warning that glyphosate was “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

Johnson’s case is not part of the consolidated proceedings in Missouri, Delaware or California state court, where some 2,000 similar cases are pending. It’s also separate from a federal multidistrict litigation waiting to be heard by US District Judge Vance Chabria of San Francisco – who allowed hundreds of Roundup lawsuits to proceed to trial after ruling that there was sufficient evidence for a jury to hear the cases despite calling a plaintiff’s expert opinions “shaky.”

Documents released in August of 2017 led to questions over Monsanto’s efforts to influence the news media and scientific research and revealed internal debate over the safety of its highest-profile product, the weed killer Roundup.

As the New York Times commented last year, leaked internal emails, among other things, reveal ethical objections from former employees to “ghost writing” research studies that were pawned off as ‘independent’ analyses.
These documents detail the meaures to which the Monsanto was willing to resport in order to protect its image. Documents show that Henry I. Miller, an academic and a vocal proponent of genetically modified crops, asked Monsanto to draft an article for him that largely mirrored one that appeared under his name on Forbes’s website in 2015. Mr. Miller could not be reached for comment.

A similar issue appeared in academic research. A biologist involved in writing research funded by Monsanto, John Acquavella, a former Monsanto employee, appeared to express discomfort with the process, writing in a 2015 email to a Monsanto executive, “I can’t be part of deceptive authorship on a presentation or publication.” He also said of the way the company was trying to present the authorship: “We call that ghost writing and it is unethical.”

The newly disclosed emails also reveal internal discussions which cast some doubt over whether internal scientists actually believed in the company’s external messaging that Roundup was, in fact, safe. In the bigger picture these documents will throw into doubt legal judgements in many other cases, as they strongly suggest Monsanto have misled the courts in their evidence.


RELATED POSTS:


World Bank Aims to Hand Over Seed Industry to Agribusiness

Today Donald Trump will be inaugurated as 45h President of The United States, his victory in the November election having been a major setback to those dark forces that give the impression only one more big push was needed to drive the world into accepting a global authoritarian government. Trump's victory, combined with 'Brexit' the vote by British citizens to leave the EU, combined to make 2026 a bad year for the globalists.




World Bank Aims to Hand Over Seed Industry to Agribusiness
Today Donald Trump will be inaugurated as 45h President of The United States, his victory in the November election having been a major setback to those dark forces that give the impression only one more big push was needed to drive the world into accepting a global authoritarian government. Trump's victory, combined with 'Brexit' the vote by British citizens to leave the EU, combined to make 2026 a bad year for the globalists.
Red Meat Causes Cancer Says World Health Org. Scientists. They Are Lying Of Course

Science was ever fascism's whore; it has become a catchphrase of The Daily Stirrer over the years as week after week we report instances of scientists whoring themselves for research grants, produce results that serve the vested inerests of the organisations which provide their funding.


U2 Celeb Bono partners with Monsanto, G8, to biowreck African farms with GMOs

Professional do – gooder and former rock star Bono (full name Pro – Bono because everything he does is for Bono) is very fond of strutting around the world proclaiming his love for Africa. Like most celebrity lefties he is a hypocrite; if he really wanted to help Africans improve their lot he would not …

Insane science: Babies to be manufactured from two same sex parents
We have said for a long time that science is out of control and scientists, particularly those in the field of biology, have abandoned any pretence of observing ethical contraints in their quest to play God and control nature itself. This articles shows just how far the sick creeps are prepared to go in dehumanising us.

New GMO ‘gene drive’ technology could be used to unleash the world’s most devastating biological weapon
We told you that push to make all our food crops Genetically Modified was much more sinister than feeding the world's poor at the expense of ordinary people in developed nations. Now the real agenda is starting to be revealed.
UK's First GM crops enriched with nutrients ready for harvest
With public opinion and a significant (but ignored by mainstream media sngly opposed to the introduction of Genetically Modified foods one would think that politicians, having lost the trust of voters, might hold back on this one. But no, as usual they are sidelining the public interest and ignoring public opinion in order to push the interests of the corporate cronies.Latest Posts

Elsewhere: [Boggart Blog]...[Little Nicky Machiavelli]...[Scribd]...[Wikinut] ... [ Boggart Abroad] ... [ Grenteeth Bites ] ... Ian Thorpe at Flickr ]

'No Monsanto!': Protest Against GMO Food Goes Global
Thousands took to streets across the world’s cities on Saturday to protest the use of GMO products, with Giant Monsanto being the main target. Over 50 countries have been taking part in the march for world food day, and across 47 different US states. Berlin, Strasbourg, Chicago, London, Sydney and Mumbai are just a few of the 500 cities worldwide involved in the rallies, with each one drawing hundreds.

Another 'Scientific Consensus' Turns Out To Be Corporate / Government Scam

So there are no scientists in the world who question the corporate lieOpen Letter from World Scientists to All Governments Concerning Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). The World Scientists Statement dates from 1999. It was superceded by the Independent Science Panel Report in 2003, and by the most recent report Ban GMOs Now in 2013.
Monsanto Whistleblower Admits Entire Department Exists to "Discredit” Scientists

Dare to publish a scientific study against Big Biotech will mount a campaign similar to a medieval witch hunt, aimed at defaming and discrediting you. All in all this is very similar the what happens in any area of commercial activity in which researcers working in the public interest collide with the science whores who prostitute themselves for corporate money.
Thousand of Indian farmers protest against corporate imperialism and Government promotion of GMO seed.

In India the deeply unpopular Modi government is facing a massive revolt against possibly corrupt and certainly undemocratic collaboration with biotech giants like Du Pont and Monsanto in trying to use legislative power to force farmers to accept the introduction of Genetically Modified seed. Protests against the Government and ruling coalition took place in Delhi on ...

"I'm Not Stupid" Monsanto Lobbyist Refuses To Drink Weedkiller After Proclaiming "It Won't Hurt You"


The glib claim backfired however when the Monsanto lobbyist was offered a glass of diluted Roundup (active ingredient Glyphosate) and asked to drink it.

"Do you think I'm stupid, " the lobbyist blustered ...

UN Report Says Small-Scale Organic Farming Only Way To Feed The World




New Book Exposes GMO Corporate Fraud


A big event in the battle to keep the food we eat natural, healthy and affordable for the poorest families this month was the publication in London of a new book by American public interest attorney Steven Druker. The text reveals how the U.S. government and leading scientific institutions have systematically suppressed misrepresented the facts about GMOs and the scientific research that casts doubt on their safety.
Even as the United States government continues to push for the use of more chemically-intensive and corporate-dominated farming methods such as GMOs and monoculture-based crops, the United Nations is once against sounding the alarm about the urgent need to return to (and develop) a more sustainable, natural and organic system.
Playing God In The Garden. The Risks Of Messing About With Nature.

As the corrupt politicians, greedy corporate businesses and insane scientists stepo up their efforts to assure the public that food containing Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) is safe, why is public opposition growning. OK, recently exposures of corporate corruption, scientific fraud and politicical dishonest have destroyed trust but is there more to it than that?
Top anti-GMO scientists band together in film exposing threats and secrecy.

The debate within the scientific community about the safety for humans and the environment of the widespread replacement of natural crops with genetically engineered plans is hotting up. On one side is the pro - GMO lobby, mainstream science, the political and business establishment and the big money campaigning of the biotech industry. On the other, a growing number of dissenting scientists, the environmentalist movement and We The Punters who don't want to be forced to eat this shite.
‘Uncaged Corporate Parrots’ Of The Political Elite and The GMO False Narrative

The Environment Secretary in the UK Coalition Government, Elizabeth Truss has argued that genetically modified (GM) food should be grown in Britain because it is more ‘eco-friendly’. She adds that steps should be taken to speed up this development. Her statements come as little surprise to many because Truss’s predecessor, Owen Paterson, was also a staunch supporter of GM technology.
Insane Science Pushing The Earth Towards Ecocide.
At the Daily Stirrer we have suspected it for a long time, science is insane, a game for the ethically challenged and sociopathic to compete to be first to develop a new plague, or a death ray, or to trash the enviromnent in pursuit of political power or corporate profits for their paymasters. There's even a name for what they are doing now, Ecocide.