A shock court verdict against Monsanto’s Roundup
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Started by metmike - Aug. 16, 2018, 2:01 p.m.

Thanks to Wayne for bringing up Monsanto/this topic in another thread!

Its parent, Bayer, could end up paying billions to cancer sufferers

https://www.economist.com/business/2018/08/18/a-shock-court-verdict-against-monsantos-roundup


"IT WAS a battle between David and Goliath. On one side was Dewayne Johnson (pictured, above), a former school caretaker who is terminally ill with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a blood-cell cancer. On the other was Monsanto, a chemicals giant recently purchased for $63bn by Bayer, a German rival. In the first case of its type, Mr Johnson’s lawyers argued that Roundup, a weedkiller made by Monsanto, had caused his cancer. To the industry’s shock, on August 10th the court decided in Mr Johnson’s favour, ordering Bayer to pay him $289m in damages.

Bayer’s shares abruptly fell by 11% to their lowest level in five years, wiping $11bn off the firm’s value as investors totted up the potential bill from other litigants. Other weedkiller-makers were hit harder still. Shares in Nufarm, an Australian chemicals firm that makes products similar to Roundup, slid by 17%."

Comments
By Lacey - Aug. 16, 2018, 3:14 p.m.
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Was pleasantly surprised to see the verdict.  Hopefully the remaining lawsuits bankrupt the company.  The world gets a reprieve.

By wglassfo - Aug. 16, 2018, 6:24 p.m.
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Hello everybody

"Hopefully the world gets a reprieve"

What do you or anybody else want in the way of a reprieve

This is a long and complicated process we have gotten ourselves into so bear with me

Almost 300 million and counting is huge, very large indeed

You are the buyer and consumer of my product, so you should have a lot of input, considering the entire food industry and every consumer, which, after all, affects every one of us

A producer of any product should pay close attention to the market place of one's product

Producers of undesirable production may well leave the producer with a very  limited or no market

Mixing sand with export grain is one example of border line, foreign content rules

But today we examine just one part: the method of production and truthful labelling  of your food

Could you or anybody chime in as to what you want on the food store shelf

Safe food is not a good enough answer, as we saw with the breakfast cereal foods

General Mills and others advertised their product as being non-gmo

I looked and there are no gmo modified oat varieties available, so non gmo should be believable, on the packaged food label

However, the industry was a bit deceitfull, as most oat crops are sprayed with the chemical round up just before harvest, to hasten maturity and have a more even maturity at harvest

The buyers of the oat crop have told the oat producers this is okay, to spray, of which, they will buy the oats and sell them to General Mills and others, as non-gmo even though General Mills and other processors know full well what chemical is sprayed on the crop

I did not know this with out some research as I do not grow oats

Much to my surprise on further research, some European countries spray their maize or corn crop with round up at 34% or lower grain moisture to hasten harvest and dry down the grain crop, as it can be used in many ways and will have round up on the grain or even make it's way into the meat, dairy, poultry etc. foods

Silly as it seems, most if not all [I don't know] European countries have erected trade barriers against gmo grain imported into the EU, stating food safety of gmo grain

Those suckers spray round up on their grain crops just before harvest, much the same as the food oat industry but claim non-gmo food

So: you can see this is all very complicated and designed to baffle the consumer of food

What do you want me to do, so you will buy my production of food

Just saying non-gmo is not good enough as you can see the various twists and turns available to label a food product some thing other than it really is or contains

The list of food products I looked at all had one common denominator

Those foods were produced under strict organic restrictions. That may be what you want, but for example

Is animal or human manure organic or do we mine the soil of all nutrients with no additional nutrients applied and eventually end up with non productive soils with no nutrients available for plant growth

Do we treat animal waste the same as human waste??

Animal waste can and most probably will contain chemical residue, or the veterarian industry goes out of business, and a truck load of chemicals goes some where and a truck load of people producing these chemicals to treat sick cows, go unemployed

I could expand on this, but I think you get the gist, so far

But wait: there is more

 A very few can grow organic, and have found ways to be successful. Most have failed and at great cost trying to make organic work. The one question might be?? How large [or small] might the supply of food be on the grocery shelf

But, the one constant denominator remains. Every organic farm production has to have much higher prices for the end product

5.00/litre of milk, or 6.00/gallon would be really cheap from true organic production

Try what??? 15.00/gallon milk for a guess and the ethanol haters would have their cancer causing agents back into the pump gas supply, as all corn production would most likely be needed for other uses, due to lower and more costly price/unit

Just tell me what you would like and how, you want me to produce your food. If enough demand a change, then I need to get with the program.

If one chemical Co. goes Bk, another will replace,

You can bank on somebody else replacing the product or a generic product, so just wishing BK won't stop the flow of chemicals into your food

If round up disappears, producers may not like it, but we did grow crops with out round up once upon a time and can do it again.

In fact, at one time we had nothing but salt to kill weeds. Of course, nothing else grew on that spot for yrs but any how, we did it. A barrel, nozzle, hand pump and a team of horses

 Unless of course, you, and enough other people, want the entire food production system,  regulated from seed production to the food shelf. Not much will change

Then you will need an army of inspectors to regulate, but enuff said, and good luck to that process

Like I said. It is complicated, but it could be done [maybe]

JMHO

By Lacey - Aug. 19, 2018, 11:56 a.m.
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Good explanation of how complicated the process to determine organic or not.  All Roundup needs to be banned.  The number of new autoimmune diseases has gone up linearly to the beginning use of Roundup in our agriculture.  And as you say we produced crops long before Roundup came on the seen.  I have an interest in an organic farm in Ecuador.  It is definitely more expensive to go that route, but we are finding that the demand is there, even at the local level.  Too early to say if we will be successful at this farm project.  How many countries ban our imports of grains because of the chemicals we put on them, beyond Roundup?