San Fran Jury finds Monsanto Guilty of knowingly killing people

[InfestedKerrigan]

 

 

[WestRider]

Long past time. I heard there are something like 5000 other lawsuits lined up because of this verdict.

[Sgt. Rock]

Okay, apologies in advance for the wall of text, but bull[big bad swear word] must be dispelled. Via The Credible Hulk: 

No, glyphosate is not a "GMO," but rather an herbicide which binds to and inhibits the action of an enzyme known as EPSP synthase, which plants need in order to make three important amino acids: (phenylalanine, tyrosine, and tryptophan) via what's known as the shikimic acid pathway, which is only found in plants and some bacteria, fungi and protozoans. It does this by acting as what’s called an uncompetitive inhibitor. That means that it can only bind to the enzyme-substrate complex – the substrate being shikimate-3-phosphate in this case – and cannot bind the enzyme when the substrate is unbound.

Upon binding to the enzyme-substrate complex, glyphosate prevents the complex from forming its product, 5-enopyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate (EPSP). Normally the complex would form EPSP by reacting with another molecule called phosphoenol pyruvate (PEP), but sufficient concentrations of glyphosate reduces the number of units of the enzyme-substrate complex available to form their product. The shikimic acid pathway doesn’t exist in us. Humans and other mammals, for example, can’t make those amino acids at all to begin with, so we get them directly from our food. Plants need those amino acids in order to grow and to make proteins, so if they are unable to synthesize them, they can’t grow, and therefore they die

http://www.glyphosate.eu/glyphosate-mechanism-action

Regarding claims of glyphosate's alleged carcinogenicity: after well over 40 years of common use, there is still no good evidence that glyphosate use presents any discernible cancer risk to humans. Out of all the reputable scientific organizations to have examined this question, only one of them (the IARC, which does only hazard assessments and not risk assessments) concluded it was a probable carcinogen. Their conclusion was far more subtle than what many media outlets were reporting; (I.e. they never claimed any link between trace amounts of glyphosate on food and cancer). 

Nevertheless, it later turned out that the review committee had undisclosed conflicts of interest. As reported by Reuters, Christopher Portier, one of the advisors of the review project, had apparently received $160,000 from a CA law firm that was looking to cash in on Prop 65 related class action lawsuits regarding glyphosate (CA was known to use IARC assessments as the basis for its prop 65 updates). 

It was also revealed that the head scientist of the IARC's review group (Aaron Blair) had withheld information that would have made it less likely to meet their criteria for probable carcinogenicity. 

Here's the Reuters article about the law firm COI:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/weedkiller-scientist-was-paid-120-000-by-cancer-lawyers-v0qggbrk6

Here's the one about the IARC's omission of critical data:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/glyphosate-cancer-data/

And here's journalist Kate Kelland's Reuters reporting (even before that) that the IARC had advised scientists on the panel not to disclose documents under US Freedom of Information Act requests, purportedly in order to prevent the details of their deliberations from being scrutinized.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-cancer-iarc-exclusive-idUSKCN12P2FW

Moreover, it's worth re-emphasizing that the IARC classification is disputed by other independent scientific organizations based on a lack of compelling evidence for the move:

"Following a second mandate from the European Commission to consider the findings from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) regarding the potential carcinogenicity of glyphosate or glyphosate-containing plant protection products in the on-going peer review of the active substance, EFSA concluded that glyphosate is unlikely to pose a carcinogenic hazard to humans and the evidence does not support classification with regard to its carcinogenic potential according to Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008."

http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/4302

"All available toxicological studies (nearly 300) were re-assessed from the point of view of compliance with actual quality standards in study conduction and confirmation of interpreted results. Furthermore, about 900 publications from scientific journals have been considered in the draft report and more than 200 publications were reviewed in detail. In conclusion of this re-evaluation process of the active substance glyphosate by BfR the available data do not show carcinogenic or mutagenic properties of glyphosate nor that glyphosate is toxic to fertility, reproduction or embryonal/fetal development in laboratory animals."

http://www.bfr.bund.de/en/the_bfr_has_finalised_its_draft_report_for_the_re_evaluation_of_glyphosate-188632.html

"In a statement likely to intensify a row over its potential health impact, experts from the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Health Organization (WHO) said glyphosate is "unlikely to pose a carcinogenic risk to humans" exposed to it through food. It is mostly used on crops.

Having reviewed the scientific evidence, the joint WHO/FAO committee also said glyphosate is unlikely to be genotoxic in humans. In other words, it is not likely to have a destructive effect on cells' genetic material."

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0Y71HR

Which is referencing the following joint FAO/WHO document:

http://www.who.int/foodsafety/jmprsummary2016.pdf?ua=1

Health Canada concluded:

"An evaluation of available scientific information found that products containing glyphosate do not present unacceptable risks to human health or the environment when used according to the proposed label directions."

https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/consumer-product-safety/pesticides-pest-management/public/consultations/proposed-re-evaluation-decisions/2015/glyphosate/document.html

And the US Environmental Protection Agency (the EPA) issued a review which concluded: 

"…there is not strong support for the “suggestive evidence of carcinogenic potential” cancer classification descriptor based on the weight-of-evidence, which includes the fact that even small, non-statistically significant changes observed in animal carcinogenicity and epidemiological studies were contradicted by studies of equal or higher quality. The strongest support is for “not likely to be carcinogenic to humans” at the doses relevant to human health risk assessment for glyphosate."

http://src.bna.com/iE2

- Cred Hulk

Screenshot c/o We Love GMOs and Vaccines

[PourSpelur]

Monsanto is a nasty corporation that has nasty business practices. This particular ruling is total BS. Science was ignored in favor of idealisms.

That sum it up? Not being snarky, actual question.

[Duckman]

The problem is that science has never really featured heavily in any Monsanto trial (in spite of lots of noise to the contrary).  This is just the pendulum swinging back the other way.

You see, for years, Monsanto has had patents on specific genes in the their crops (this is a horrible idea but the US patent office has not been up to speed on science for about 150 years now anyway and that is a whole different story).  That's how they control their product.  The problem is that nature doesn't really care about patent law and so when plants pollinate they actually mix genes...  You know, the way nature intended.

 

In the past, Monsanto has filed lawsuits against farmers with property neighboring people who use their seed because they have illegally trespassed onto those farms, taken samples and *gasp* found samples which include their patented genes.  That's like a guy patenting color blindness and then suing any woman he sleeps with who has a child carrying color-blindness (i.e. every female offspring).  Nobody at Monsanto was surprised to find their genes in neighboring fields...  It's what they chose to do about it that was the problem.  In these lawsuits, the farmers always lost and as a result, many of them lost their farms.  If the company is willing to file false and likely malicious claims in the name of profit, I can't say I really have a problem with them losing the same kind of lawsuits...  

 

Honestly, I hate the idea of professional juries but as stupid as the general jury pool has become I'm beginning to wonder if it would not be preferable.

[WestRider]

Some googling turned up some really interesting discussions of the issues that arise in situations where juries without specialist knowledge end up having to decide cases that hinge on scientific findings that are not only beyond their knowledge base, but that aren't even resolved within the scientific community.

Snopes also had some links to allegations that both the "safe" and "unsafe" sides were using studies that had been influenced by groups with vested interests in the results. I can't say it's surprising, but it is something to keep in mind when looking at these sorts of cases.