Judicial limits on glyphosate and climate ‘jackpot justice’ litigation

Narrowly defined decision provides guidance on ‘evidence’ for alleged cause of harm

By Paul Driessen

Although the US Supreme Court frequently overrules it, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (covering California, eight other western states and two US territories) deserves applause for its recent Engilis v. Monsanto decision.

The court affirmed a district court’s exclusion of “expert testimony” claiming a plaintiff’s exposure to the glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup caused his blood cancer (chronic lymphocytic leukemia). The court upheld summary judgment in favor of product manufacturer Monsanto (now owned by Bayer).

It was an important victory amid numerous lawsuits against the company for allegedly knowing this chemical is carcinogenic but failing to warn consumers. In fact, by 2020, mass tort litigation firms had lined up over 22,000 “corporate victims,” and San Francisco area juries had awarded several plaintiffs $78 million to $1 billion per person in compensatory and punitive damages!

One firm’s website even claimed the requisite exposure to Roundup could involve simply “living near a farm where the potentially dangerous herbicide is used.” The victim could thereby be afflicted with lymphoma, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, Parkinson disease, multiple sclerosis, lung, brain or thyroid cancer, heart disease or six other diseases. This is the warzone Monsanto had been dragged into.

The awards were subsequently reduced to “mere” tens of millions. However, faced with seemingly endless litigation, clever lawyers, and sympathetic jurors with limited grasp of science or medicine, in 2020 Bayer-Monsanto paid nearly $11 billion to a half-dozen law firms to settle most of the lawsuits.

It’s hardly surprising Monsanto settled and took glyphosate out of its US home lawn and garden Roundup formulation. But firms and plaintiffs not part of the settlement are still suing.

Peter and Cathy Engilis were among them. Unfortunately for them, their lawyers relied on the testimony of a board-certified oncologist who reviewed various possible causes of Mr. Engilis’s cancer, ruled out obesity as a contributing factor, and concluded that glyphosate was the most likely cause.

His testimony was the only evidence plaintiffs presented. The district court excluded it as unreliable, since the expert had failed to employ a scientific analysis to rule out obesity as a cause.

The Ninth Circuit agreed, ruling that an expert’s conclusions or opinions are not enough. Under Federal Rule of Evidence 72, experts must provide scientifically sound reasons for ruling out alternative causes and do so by a preponderance of actual evidence. Conclusory assertions are insufficient, unless supported by facts, data or studies, not merely knowledge or experience.

The US Supreme Court underscored these points in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals. Plaintiffs must prove the scientific evidence presented is relevant and reliable, the Court said. It must have been tested and peer-reviewed against prevailing standards; be accepted in the applicable scientific community; and show more than just circumstantial links between an injury and alleged cause.

Experts must also show how they reached their conclusions and point to objective sources that demonstrate they followed scientific methods practiced by at least a recognized minority in their field.

This is basic common sense and something law students learn in Evidence 101. As I argued in a medical journal article, it is especially vital in glyphosate litigation – and other complex, emotionalized cases, including lawsuits alleging damages from climate and weather events supposedly caused by fossil fuel production, refining, or use in transportation or manufacturing.

The jackpot justice Roundup cases rely on so much speculative “evidence” that they should all be dismissed, based on Daubert, Engilis, common sense, and the endless list of carcinogens we encounter during our lifetimes.

Glyphosate was introduced in 1974, is licensed in 130 countries, and is used every year by millions of homeowners, gardeners and farmers to control weeds. Studies and reviews by the US Environmental Protection Agency, European Food Safety Authority, UN Food and Agriculture Organization, Health Canada and dozens of other experts have found it safe and non-carcinogenic.

The US Agricultural Health Study has followed some 52,000 licensed private pesticide applicators (mostly farmers) and more than 32,000 of their spouses for nearly three decades. More than 80% of these test subjects used glyphosate. The study has found no glyphosate-cancer link.

Only one agency, the France-based International Agency for Cancer Research, says otherwise. In 2015, IARC ruled that glyphosate is a “probable” human carcinogen – based primarily on two mice studies, which multiple investigators said manipulated data while ignoring studies that contradicted IARC’s preferred conclusion.

Instead of doing research, IARC classifies chemicals as definitely, probably or possibly carcinogenic based on reviews of other organizations’ research – and by applying “exposure” or “hazard” tests that many epidemiologists view as antiquated and of limited value. Those tests use laboratory animals to determine whether a chemical might cause cancer, even if only at extremely high levels that no animal or human would be exposed to in the real world.  

Indeed, epidemiologists and toxicity experts say some chemicals may cause cancer or other serious health problems at extremely high doses but be harmless at levels encountered in our daily lives. Others may be harmful at high doses but beneficial or essential at low or very low doses.

IARC’s Group 1 carcinogens (“definitely carcinogenic”) include 120 chemicals, substances and industrial processes: plutonium, sunlight, aflatoxin, asbestos, cadmium, tobacco, welding, processed meats and more.

Group 2A (“probably carcinogenic”) lists 80+ chemicals, substances and processes, including glyphosate, dieldrin, malathion, acetaldehyde in bread, anabolic steroids, emissions from high-temperature food frying, red meat, drinking “very hot” beverages and working as a hairdresser.

Group 2B “possibly carcinogenic” materials and processes show “limited evidence” of carcinogenicity but includes diesel fuel, pickled vegetables, carpentry work, caffeic acid in coffee, nutritious foods like apples and broccoli, and over 300 other substances and occupations.

IARC carcinogen claims seem to be such outliers, so beneath scientific norms, so tainted by conflicts of interest and misconduct, so unrelated to actual risks, so deceptive and even fraudulent – that they should never be admitted as evidence in any glyphosate trial. But from a jackpot justice plaintiff or lawyer perspective, they are central to nearly every case.

Roundup carcinogen allegations should also be excluded from evidence and testimony because it is impossible to differentiate alleged effects of glyphosate from those of countless other chemicals, substances, occupations and industrial processes plaintiffs may have been exposed to or engaged in over the course of their lives. The lists presented above represent a tiny sample.

The same principles apply to climate lawsuits in state and international courts.

The lawsuits involve computer models with zero predictive capability; conclusory assertions devoid of actual supportive evidence; and refusal to recognize Earth’s tumultuous climate history, powerful natural forces that caused momentous climate changes long before the fossil fuel era, written records and data over the past 200 years showing no unprecedented changes or trends in climate or weather, and an inability to separate natural from alleged human causes.

Evidence Rule 72, the Daubert and Engilis decisions, and basic scientific principles demand summary judgments in favor of fossil fuel producers every single time.

Paul Driessen, JD is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books and articles on energy, climate change and pesticides.

The EPA Grows A Pair And Takes A Stand On Glyphosate

By Josh Bloom,  Aug 13, 2019 @ American Council on Science and Health

 

Sometimes facts beat hype. This week was one of those times. The EPA, after years of compiling and evaluating data, declared that it would not approve labels for the herbicide glyphosate that contained a cancer warning. This puts the U.S. agency in direct opposition to California's absurd Proposition 65, which would require a cancer warning label on the chemical -- even though it would be incorrect. The U.S. now joins a dozen other countries that have already determined glyphosate is safe as used.

You might as well get pissed off in advance because if you don't much care for scientific evidence you're not going to enjoy this a whole lot. Sorry, but facts are facts, and in this case, the US EPA has them right while the State of California has them wrong.

By any measure, California's Proposition 65 is an exercise in madness. 

The law, which is officially titled "The Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986," was well-intended at the time it was written – to stop pollutants from being discharged into water. Now it has nothing to do with water; it is merely an excuse for predatory trial lawyers, to file lawsuits against companies, small and large, with the laughable goal of "protecting the public" by suing companies that fail to "warn the public" about harmless products like purses, shoes, Tiffany lamps, and bird feeders, as well as hotel rooms, and amusement parks. How, did these evil companies –many being small family businesses – fail to adequately warn us? By not putting an immensely stupid label on things that cannot possibly hurt you. (See Should California Put A Warning Label On Your Penis?). So it should not be surprising that California wants a Prop 65 label put on the controversial herbicide glyphosate.

Except, the EPA doesn't see it that way when it comes to glyphosate (1). The agency recently announced that it would not permit California to put a cancer label on the chemical. And rightly so. 

Some will write off the EPA's recent decision to reject a cancer warning label for glyphosate as partisan politics or big money influencing a government agency. It is neither. Instead, we are seeing a rare case of honesty that is based on scientific evidence, not nonsense. The EPAs decision is scientifically sound on every level. 

"We will not allow California's flawed program to dictate federal policy, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler 

Good for him. Wheeler is dead-on. The "evidence" supporting the carcinogenicity of the chemical is not only flimsy; it is a product of fraudulent research by the International Agency on Cancer Research (IARC). Here is an excerpt from my colleague Dr. Alex Berezow's complete annihilation of IARC and its findings:

"We now have an answer... The Times reports that Christopher Portier, a key IARC advisor who lobbied to have glyphosate listed as a carcinogen, accepted $160,000 from trial lawyers representing cancer patients who stood to profit handsomely by suing glyphosate manufacturers. Mr. Portier's failure to disclose such an obvious conflict of interest has exploded into a textbook case of scientific fraud." Dr. Alex Berezow, Glyphosate-Gate: IARC's Scientific Fraud, October 2017

IARC's "evidence," such as it is, was the lone culprit in designating glyphosate as a carcinogen. Epidemiological studies have found no connection between cancer industrial workers who routinely handle the stuff. Biochemical assays that are suggestive of DNA damage or mutation all come up negative. Aside from IARC's made-up baloney, there are no valid animal studies that show that it causes cancer. Regulatory agencies from the US, Canada, the EU, France, Germany, Switzerland, New Zealand, Brazil, Japan, Australia, and Korea all state that glyphosate does not pose a risk of toxicity or carcinogenicity. 

Yet, California, based on IARC's phony findings wanted to slap an incorrect label on it based on the findings of a corrupt group. 

A rare win for science and a loss for faulty activism. How refreshing. 

NOTE:

(1) This week's announcement was not the first time that EPA has objected to the cancer label. In 2017 the agency released the Glyphosate Human Health Risk Assessment, which was a basis for the 2019 decision.

Related content:

Why Did the EPA Delay Its Glyphosate Safety Report?

If You Accept Science, You Accept Roundup Does Not Cause Cancer

Glyphosate Bee Death Story Is Bee-S

Glyphosate: A Slow But Steady Vindication

How to 'Prove' a Chemical is Dangerous: The Glyphosate Case Study

 

Tags:

• glyphosate
• IARC
• IARC corruption
• cancer warning labels

Category

Chemicals & Chemistry

 

Josh Bloom

Director of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Science

Dr. Josh Bloom, the Director of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Science, comes from the world of drug discovery, where he did research for more than 20 years. He holds a Ph.D. in chemistry.

Recent articles by this author:

The Perfect Rocket Fuel: No Fires, No Chemicals. Just Energy.

CNN (and Others) Issue Terrifying Warning on Soaring Microplastics. But Did They Read the Study?

It's Summer. Some Stuff You Should Know About the Ocean

Ridiculous Supplements with Ridiculous Names

Dead Wrong: What West Virginia’s OD Deaths Tell Us About U.S. Opioid Policy

Biden EPA gives regulatory booster shot for food inflation

July 18, 2022 By Hank Campbell @ Washington Examiner

The No. 1 crop in America is corn. It’s a major ingredient in thousands of food and beverage items as well as a staple in beef cattle diets, and it is the second largest export after soybeans. A recent decision by the Environmental Protection Agency could change all of that.

Late last month, the EPA released a new standard for how much of the popular and crucial weedkiller known as Atrazine, in use since 1958, could be detected in aquatic systems. Known as the Concentration Equivalent Level of Concern, or CE-LOC , this number was 18 parts per billion from 2004-2011. In 2011, it temporarily dropped to 10 ppb before scientists settled at 15 ppb in 2019 during the final stages of the recurring EPA process known as registration review, which began again in 2013.

Now the Biden administration wants to make it the unworkably low level of 3.4 ppb.

This new 3.4 ppb level is not based on science. Farmers know it, and EPA scientists know it. It is an impossible standard, especially for a popular herbicide used in America's top crop, which means it is effectively a ban on a product that EPA scientists had just re-registered and found safe at 15 ppb. What will put rivers and wildlife at risk is forcing farmers to use older, less effective products in higher quantities.

Agriculture is already facing a crisis. Supply chain problems have caused the price of generic glufosinate (Liberty) and glyphosate (Roundup) to shoot up 300%. The EPA restricted dicamba in Iowa just two weeks ago. Costs are ballooning for everyone. This new standard by EPA is going to create even higher costs and more environmental strain on 65 million acres of corn, sugarcane, and sorghum. Higher yields and lower costs for corn save the public about $6 billion annually. Modern, safe weedkillers mean less tillage and less soil erosion.

How this came to be is baffling to scientists and the public but perhaps not a surprise to political experts. The EPA had already finished its scientific analysis of Atrazine so the Biden administration piggybacked onto an environmental lawsuit and asked the court to force the EPA to reopen the determination of a very conservative safe level for the weedkiller. Once the court order was given, the Biden administration overruled its own scientists and accepted an outlier result that the Obama administration had determined was not based on evidence.

The bulk of the work was done during the Obama administration and finalized during the Trump administration, so this is not the usual Democrats versus Republicans maneuvering. This is the Biden administration versus everyone. It is undermining government scientists, who had completed an exhaustive review to re-register the herbicide, and farmers who want guidelines — but not guidelines that are really bans created by sidestepping science and Congress and that force them to scramble to find replacements.

When a quality study comes out that shows reason for concern about using an herbicide or any product, the administration can and should call a Scientific Advisory Panel and ask experts to look at the data and decide if new concern is warranted. That did not happen here. In this case, EPA bureaucrats were told to wave off their own experts and accept fringe claims that scientists do not. It's not just bad science — it is bad for an economy that is already struggling.

Hank Campbell is the founder of Science 2.0 , a 501(c)(3) science and health nonprofit organization.

 

Glyphosate can cure cancer?

Yes, some research ‘shows’ that — but what does it mean? And what does it say about Roundup doomsday claims? Another study finds glyphosate herbicide kills tumor cells. Is the much-maligned weedkiller a cancer fighter?

Cameron English | July 1, 2021 

Now that three juries have said Bayer’s weed killer Roundup (glyphosate) causes cancer, many people believe there is clear evidence that the herbicide is dangerous. Organic industry-funded advocacy group U.S. Right to Know (USRTK) certainly wants consumers to believe that. The California-based nonprofit has played a key role in the three cases, providing evidence the plaintiffs’ lawyers have used to make their case.

“Studies link glyphosate to a range of health concerns,” USRTK declared in a recent article, Glyphosate Spin Check: Tracking Claims About the Most Widely Used Herbicide, “including cancer, endocrine disruption, liver disease, shortened pregnancies, birth defects and damage to beneficial gut bacteria ….”

None of these claims stand up to scrutiny from independent scientists or oversight agencies, as GLP has reported extensively. But USRTK has employed a tactic (favored by political groups of all persuasions) in its opposition to glyphosate that is worth examining: Sifting through the peer-reviewed literature to find studies that support their argument, while dismissing contradictory research—widely known as “cherry picking.”

Selectively citing studies can lead to erroneous conclusions, which is why scientists criticize the practice and insist on evaluating all the available research, a standard known as “preponderance of evidence.” But if you want to show that glyphosate is dangerous, despite a mountain of contrary data, picking cherries is a useful approach...........To Read More....

Another study finds glyphosate herbicide kills tumor cells. Is the much-maligned weedkiller a cancer fighter?

Cameron English | July 2, 2021 

Whilehile biotech giant Bayer attempts to settle thousands of lawsuits alleging its weed killer Roundup causes cancer, several studies published over the last six years have suggested that glyphosate, the active ingredient in the the much-maligned herbicide, may actually prohibit cancer cell growth. 'A paper published on June 24, 2019 in the Journal of Environmental Science and Health, Part B is the fourth such study since 2013 to suggest that Roundup may have cancer-fighting properties. The authors reported that the co-formulants—substances that enhance the performance of the active ingredient glyphosate—inhibited the growth of cancerous human liver, lung and nerve cells, while glyphosate was relatively harmless:

Glyphosate-based herbicides are broad-spectrum pesticides widely used in the world …. but recently, there has been an ongoing controversy regarding their carcinogenicity …. Data obtained showed that all tested ethoxylated formulants and their mixtures with declared active ingredient glyphosate isopropylamine salt (GP) have significant inhibitory effect on cell proliferation, while the declared active ingredient has no significant toxicity.

If Roundup or one of its ingredients turns out to be an effective cancer treatment, it would be a stunning twist in the midst of Bayer’s ongoing legal battle. But that’s not yet the appropriate conclusion to draw from this evidence. The four existing studies are very preliminary. Three of them, including the June 24 paper, are in-vitro or cell culture studies, which involve dousing cells in chemicals to see what happens, a notoriously unreliable way to measure real-world toxicity............To Read More...

The Emperor - IARC - Has No Clothes

By Susan Goldhaber MPH — June 14, 2021 @ American Council on Science and Health

As we’re in the midst of a reevaluation of whether the Virology Laboratory in Wuhan, China was the true source of the Covid-19 virus that caused the pandemic, a theory which the World Health Organization (WHO), many U.S. scientists, and the media rejected for over a year’s time, there is another issue that warrants a complete reexamination: The International Agency for Research on Cancer’s (IARC’s) assessment of glyphosate. 

This is not a new issue. In fact, the ACSH has published numerous articles on this over the years, beginning in 2017. [1] Currently, there is no transparent review process for the assessments of the IARC Monographs program, even when there is clear counter-evidence from many other respected organizations.  This resulted in the IARC assessment of glyphosate as the central document in billions of dollars of litigation that ultimately resulted in an $11 billion settlement in 2020 that resolved the bulk of the lawsuits claiming that Roundup (glyphosate) caused cancer.  

I hope that we are finally at a place when a few influential scientists with integrity will have the courage to speak out and demand that the 2015 IARC assessment of glyphosate be retracted or revised.

Background

Roundup (glyphosate) is the world’s best-selling weedkiller and has been used for over 45 years. It is effective against a wide variety of weeds and has lower toxicity compared to other products it has replaced (such as atrazine and alachlor).   

In 2015, IARC classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans.” IARC, based in Lyon, France, is a semi-autonomous unit of the WHO, the health agency for the United Nations. Since 1971, IARC has evaluated over 1000 chemicals or substances for inclusion in “IARC Monographs on the Identification of the of the Carcinogenic Risk to Humans” series. Two-thirds of the funding of the IARC Monograph program comes from U.S. agencies, with grants from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) totaling almost a million dollars per year.

The purpose of the IARC Monographs program is to evaluate the available scientific evidence to determine the likelihood that a chemical causes cancer. The evaluation is carried out by a “working group of independent international experts.” But how independent are they really? Most U.S. scientists are dependent on grants and contracts from U.S. agencies such as the NCI and NIEHS that support IARC. It would be foolhardy to speak out against IARC, which could threaten their standing in the scientific community and, therefore, their livelihood.    

What Do Other Agencies Say?

IARC is the only agency that has concluded that glyphosate poses a carcinogenic risk. The following is a list of agencies that have concluded that glyphosate is not carcinogenic: 

• US Environmental Protection Agency
• Health Canada
• European Food Safety Authority
• European Chemicals Agency
• Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
• French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety
• German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment
• Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicine Authority
• Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office (Switzerland)
• Environmental Protection Authority (New Zealand)
• National Health Surveillance Agency (Brazil)
• Food Safety Commissions of Japan
• Rural Development Association (S. Korea)

“Our scientists left no stone unturned in conducting this review. They had access to all relevant data and information from federal and provincial governments, international regulatory agencies, published scientific reports, and multiple pesticide manufacturers. To help ensure an unbiased assessment of the information, Health Canada selected a group of 20 of its own scientists who were not involved in the 2017 re-evaluation to evaluate the notices of objection”. Health Canada

All of the other agencies conducted similarly detailed reviews. So why was IARC the only Agency to consider glyphosate a “probable human carcinogen”?  

What is the basis for the IARC Classification?

1. Evidence in humans: IARC excluded the results from the largest and most comprehensive study on human exposure to glyphosate, the Agricultural Health Study, led by scientists at the NCI. This study examined 54,000 pesticide applicators in Iowa and North Carolina. The reason given for not including this study was that when the IARC working group met in 2015, the results were not yet published. When the results were finally published in 2018, the paper reported no significant increases in 20 different tumor types, including Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. However:

• At least one group member had seen the unpublished results and knew that they found no evidence of a link between glyphosate and cancer but chose not to reveal this information at the meeting.
• There are questions about why the data on Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma was not published before the IARC meeting, even though draft papers were prepared containing the data. 

1. Cherry-picked results from animal studies: IARC primarily based its assessment of glyphosates potential carcinogenicity on several rodent studies. Within the same study, IARC’s experts ignored the results showing no increase in tumor incidence and selected a few positive results. 
2. Changes in drafts: Draft versions of the IARC glyphosate assessment showed that negative conclusions about glyphosate leading to tumors in animal studies were replaced or deleted and neutral or positive statements were added in their place. 
3. Hazard vs. Risk: Unlike the vast majority of scientific agencies, IARC measures hazard: considering whether the chemical could cause cancer under any circumstance instead of risk: determining the likelihood that a chemical will cause cancer. To get a fuller discussion, see my previous article on this issue.

Scientific Community Response 

The response from the scientific community has been to try and win the public debate by accusing the critics of IARC of being in the pockets of corporations. 

Instead of welcoming and addressing criticism of IARC, in a 2015 letter and commentary published in the Journal of Environmental Perspectives, 124 scientists argue that the criticisms of IARC by a “vocal minority” may denigrate the process that has served public health well for many years. It is easy to see why so many scientists signed this letter. Their livelihood often depends on grants from NCI and NIEHS, the Agencies that support IARC, and criticism involving self-examination is never welcome in the scientific community.

Take a minute to review the reported conflicts of interest in this letter. To begin with 

“This work was conducted with no direct funding, but was supported in part by the Intramural Research Program of the NIH (NCI and NIEHS).” [emphasis added]

Many signators now serve as expert witnesses for plaintiffs in litigation around a host of chemicals and their effects. Others have served or continue to serve on IARC monograph working groups. 

One of IARC’s stated core principles is that the expert scientists serving in their working groups should be independent with no conflicts of interest. This has been used to ban scientists who work for industry from being in their working groups. 

“No matter how loud the voice, no matter how many people are speaking it, doesn’t make it true. But how can I tell? 

One tell-tale sign is if your voice is suppressed or vilified when you try to question that voice.”

Charles Glassman MD

Conflicts of interest are not simply financial but can often be belief-driven. The deliberate exclusion of scientists with conflicting interests in favor of glyphosate because of “bias” in IARC’s glyphosate study is an example. But when you cherry-pick your experts, you facilitate group-think, another bias that stifles the discourse that lies at the heart of science and these deliberations. 

 It is much easier to sign a letter of support than to actually examine the criticisms that may result in changes to a process that has benefited a select few scientists (those chosen to be on IARC Working Group panels) over the years. Despite all the back and forth about who was financially remunerated and by whom, it is important to recognize that there has been no scientific rationale put forth to justify the actions taken by IARC on glyphosate.

Conclusions

The U.S., as the major funder of the IARC Monographs program, should insist that IARC develop a transparent review and appeals process. In addition, the U.S. needs to ensure that IARC’s conflict of interest policy is changed to include conflicts such as working as litigation consultants in trial lawsuits.  Finally, as stated earlier, the IARC assessment of glyphosate should be retracted or revised.        

“The systematic exclusion by IARC of researchers with real or perceived industry conflicts of interest decreases the likelihood that the strongest arguments defending a suspect agent against claims of carcinogenicity will be presented and discussed during Working Group deliberations, and thus increases the probability that the agent will be classified as posing a carcinogenic hazard to humans, regardless of the strength or weakness of evidence supporting that conclusion.” 

R Tarone Conflicts of interest, bias, and the IARC Monographs Program

[1] Who is Afraid of Roundup?, EPA Refutes Study Claiming Glyphosate Boosts Cancer Risk, Claims That Criticism Of IARC Are Industry-Driven Do IARC More Harm Than Good, Roundup Cover Up? Glyphosate Funny Business At IARC, Round Up Cover-Up, Part 2: Why Did IARC Exclude Selective Evidence?    

Sources: Reuters In glyphosate review, WHO cancer agency edited out “non-carcinogenic findings”

Reuters Cancer agency left in the dark over glyphosate evidence

IARC Monographs on the Identification of the of the Carcinogenic Risk to Humans   

 

Suspect science threatens US farming – again

Environmentalists falsely claim weed-prevention chemical threatens 1,800 threatened species 

Paul Driessen

Modern American agriculture has wrought miracles over the past 70 years. Conventional farm production per acre and overall nearly tripled, corn (maize) production increased 500% from 20% less land – and farmers used less water, less fuel, less fertilizer, and fewer pesticides and other chemicals for every bushel of food they harvested. They did all this using hybrid and genetically engineered seeds, tractors guided by GPS, equipment that can space seeds precisely to the inch and apply chemicals in amounts suited to soil characteristics that can change every few feet, and numerous other high-tech advances.

By using weed control chemicals, they avoid having to till and break up the soil, thereby protecting soil organisms, conserving soil moisture, sequestering carbon, saving time and tractor fuel, allowing more land to be conserved as wildlife habitat instead of being planted in crops, and dramatically reducing erosion,. It’s thus surprising and troubling that environmentalist groups continue to attack the foundations of that success – especially GMO seeds and safe, effective, repeatedly tested, constantly monitored chemicals like glyphosate (Roundup) and neonicotinoid pesticides.

Another long-term target is atrazine, used to prevent the growth of broadleaf and grassy weeds among corn, sorghum, soybeans and sugarcane, on golf courses and lawns, and along highways. It is the second most widely used herbicide, after glyphosate , and controls glyphosate-resistant weeds. Over a dozen government studies since it was first introduced in 1958 have concluded it is safe for humans, animals and the environment.

The Center for Biological Diversity and other groups opposed to synthetic chemicals nevertheless sued the Environmental Protection Agency, claiming endangered species had not been properly considered during the pesticide review process. The courts gave EPA limited time to analyze possible effects on listed species and determine whether there is “moderate” or “strong” evidence that species and habitats on the Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) “threatened or endangered” list (as well as candidates for listing) will likely be killed or otherwise adversely affected by commonly used herbicides and insecticides.

Once EPA finishes its “biological evaluation” of each chemical, it will pass the baton to the FWS for more in-depth, but still insufficient analyses of effects on each species – also under tight court deadlines.

Faced with a court-ordered deadline and lacking the data, funding and personnel for adequate evaluations of each listed species, EPA resorted to satellite imagery, statewide crop and atrazine use data, computer models, algorithms, extrapolations and best guesses – plus available toxicity studies of rats, hamsters, other lab animals, and plants tested for the pre-emergent weed control chemical’s effectiveness. Data were not available (or were not used) at the county level, and certainly not at the farm or habitat level.

It produced a document claiming 1,013 species and 328 endangered or threatened habitats are “likely to be adversely affected” by somehow encountering atrazine, if it is inadvertently sprayed on them, small amounts “drift” into their habitats, or animals wander into a sprayed yard, farmer’s field or golf course.

These numbers represent most of the endangered or threatened species and critical habitats in the continental United States. The numbers would have been higher, except that, as EPA notes, atrazine manufacturers “committed to limit use of atrazine products” to the continental USA.

Ultimately, the agencies must decide whether to let current rules stand – or restrict or ban atrazine nationwide, regionally, or near some or all of the species’ habitats and occasional stomping grounds.

EPA’s list includes 36 amphibians, 207 aquatic invertebrates, 190 fish, 47 reptiles, 108 birds, 99 mammals, 160 insects and invertebrates, and 948 plants. At least 8 of the species are already extinct, and dozens more live in mountains, deserts and other areas that will likely never be touched by atrazine.

It’s a commendable effort – maybe the best possible under the circumstances. It’s just not good enough, not for decisions with such monumental, far-reaching implications for America’s agriculture, especially since these evaluations are likely to be grounds for many more lawsuits against other vital chemicals.

Agency findings are presented in complex equations, over 100 pages of explanations of data and methodologies, and mind-numbing, almost incomprehensible spreadsheets that can involve over 1,800 rows and 30 columns. They’ll probably impress citizens and courts, politicians and journalists with the expertise, precision and detail they supposedly reflect. But in reality, in the end, it’s mostly GIGO: multiple uncertainties in, multiple black box analyses conducted, multiple faulty conclusions out.

The EPA analysis begins with species whose actual populations and presence in specific parts of possible ranges and habitats are mostly unknown. It then utilizes statewide crop planting and atrazine use data, averaged out and applied to possible habitats and individual plants or animals – which as individuals or a species may react very differently to different amounts of atrazine, and may contact them as direct or drifting spray, diluted promptly or over weeks in soil or water, ingested or contacting the skin.

Other unknown factors include number of sprays per year; by hand, tractor or aircraft; wind speed and direction and ambient temperature at time of spraying; distance to habitat or individual plant or critter; amounts actually making contact over time; and whether an individual or species reacts to some unknown amount of atrazine the same way a very different laboratory animal did, with lethal or sublethal effects.

Even assuming a wildly optimistic 90% confidence level for each of these 12-15 or more unknowns, calculating the ultimate “strongest” evidence of harmful impacts requires multiplying the 90% (0.9) confidence for each element – thus 0.9 x 0.9 twelve or more times. The best possible scenario ends up being a ridiculously low 28% or less confidence that the agency’s ultimate findings are valid. That is useless and unacceptable. Decisions affecting our farms, produce and dinner tables must not be made so cavalierly, on the basis of such patently insufficient evidence and rank guesswork.

But suppose they do ban atrazine. What guarantees will we have that this will prolong the existence of species that are already marginal and threatened by countless other human and natural factors? None.

And what next for conventional farmers? There is no substitute for atrazine or other modern herbicides, which are more effective, less toxic and more biodegradable than their predecessors. In their absence, corn yields would decline nearly 40% – and growers would have to control weeds by hand (by thousands of migrant workers and their children?) and by regularly tilling their fields. Food prices would soar.

Tilling means tractor mileage and fuel would skyrocket, crops would need far more water and irrigation, soils would lose their integrity and many organisms, carbon sequestration would plummet, and millions of tons of farmland would erode annually. Millions more acres would have to be planted to get today’s corn and other yields – and much of that acreage would come from land that is now wildlife habitat.

It’s the “precautionary principle” at its very worst: always focusing on alleged, highly speculative risks of using chemicals – never on the risks of not using them; always highlighting risks a technology allegedly might cause, but ignoring often far greater risks it would reduce or prevent. Finally, if environmentalists, courts and regulators truly are concerned about chemical threats to these and other species, they would not look only at conventional, synthetic chemicals – but at organic chemicals.

Atrazine has an LD50 of 3090 for rats, meaning it takes 3,090 milligrams per kilogram of body weight to kill half of a test group of rats that ingest it orally. Copper sulfate used on thousands of organic farms is ten times more toxic: an LD50 of 300. It is deadly to fish, hugely harmful to avian reproductive systems and highly toxic to humans. The LD50 for rotenone is 132; a little bit will kill every fish in your favorite woodland pond. Pyrethrin (LD50: 200-2600 mg/kg) and neem oil (LD50: 3540) positively slaughter bees! Yet they (and many more such nasties) are approved for organic farming all over the US, EU and world.

When will environmentalists sue to have dangerous organic pesticides banned? When will courts and federal agencies initiate studies of their effects on EPA’s list of 1,795 threatened and endangered species?

It’s time we all focused on how and where atrazine is actually used – and whether any endangered species would actually be exposed to it (and harmed by it) under conditions of actual use. If you want your voice heard,  submit your comments to docket number EPA-HQ-OPP-2020-0514 by February 19.

Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books, reports and articles on energy, environmental, climate and human rights issues.

Viewpoint: Glyphosate-cancer trials illustrate how tort lawyers undermine science in the courtroom

Richard Williams | December 14, 2020

Should we be fair to chemical manufacturers when they are sued? First of all, who are they? Since everything in the universe is made of up of chemicals, isn’t every manufacturer a chemical manufacturer. OK, no, it is only chemical manufacturers that make chemicals. Some are useful but hazardous, meaning they require special treatment. There are large ones like Bayer, but two-thirds of the 13,500 chemical plants are small.

If they are successfully sued, who actually loses? First, employees. The plant may have to reduce production or close down, which means employees get laid off. Lawsuits will affect the owners of the company’s stock some of whom are retirees on a pension.

We should pay attention because these types of lawsuits are growing. Perhaps because regulation moves so slowly, tort lawyers have found profitable opportunities by linking any chemical exposure to consumer or worker harm. The most widely known suit has been against Bayer, the owners of Roundup, that faced tens of thousands of claims claiming exposure to the herbicide caused non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Currently, the company has agreed to pay $10 billion to settle the claims.

Unlike federal agencies like the EPA, FDA, USDA and Department of Labor, law is applied unevenly “across different jurisdictions, different judges, and different jury pools.” The variation in how the law is applied to chemicals is so wide that there is even a website for “Judicial Hellholes.” If you’ve ever seen an ad asking if you or a loved one has been exposed to a chemical and you think it caused your ailment, it’s most likely from trial lawyers who spend millions on advertising to recruit potential plaintiffs and influence juries..........To Read More....

 

Preserving courtroom and verdict integrity

Our civil justice system is as much at risk as the integrity of ballots, elections and democracy

By Paul Driessen

Big Media, Big Tech, Big Academia, the Deep State and the Cancel Culture clearly aligned with the Democrat Party, to resist, block, impede and impeach a duly elected President Trump, during and after the 2016 election and the 2020 election cycle. Computer “glitches” that too often operated in only one direction, backroom ballot counting, improper ballot harvesting and backdating, and other actions have increased concerns that the integrity of America’s elections and democracy is threatened.

Equally worrisome is growing evidence that the integrity of our courtroom proceedings and jury verdicts is also at risk. Indeed, many of the same forces arrayed against fair and honest elections have also combined to influence jurors (and judges), making them more inclined to support huge verdicts in favor of “victims of greedy corporations” that deliberately put dangerous products on the market.

In some of the most notorious lawsuits in decades, lawyers representing cancer patients have succeeded in persuading San Francisco area juries to award clients $78 million to $1 billion per person in compensatory and punitive damages – based on highly questionable assertions that the victims’ use of the chemical glyphosate in Roundup weed killer was the sole reason they got cancer.

Bayer AG acquired glyphosate creator and Roundup manufacturer Monsanto in 2018 and is thus the defendant in the cases. The verdicts, plus lack of success so far with appeals to the California Supreme Court, persuaded Bayer to settle tens of thousands of other pending cases for $10.9 billion (of which the mass-tort law firms will get some 40%), but without admitting any wrongdoing.

The Ninth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals is reviewing another appeal, and the US Supreme Court could (and should) weigh in on how the trials were conducted, which evidence was permitted or excluded during the trials, and serious questions of collusion and tampering with original experimental data.

Federal District Court judges reduced the awards to less outrageous amounts. However, the way they and plaintiff lawyers conducted the trials raises serious questions of bias and even fraud – as detailed in my Fall 2020 Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons paper and in scores of articles referenced in it.

Glyphosate was introduced in 1974 and is licensed in 130 countries; it’s the world’s most widely used herbicide. Millions of homeowners, gardeners and farmers use it regularly to control weeds.

Respected consumer protection organizations like the US Environmental Protection Agency, European Food Safety Authority, Food and Agriculture Organization, and Health Canada (some 3,300 studies in all) have concluded that glyphosate is safe and non-carcinogenic. The still ongoing U.S. Agricultural Health Study has followed some 52,000 farmers and other pesticide applicators and 32,000 of their spouses for two decades – 80% of whom use glyphosate. The study has found no glyphosate-cancer link.

Cancer epidemiologist Dr. Geoffrey Kabat says glyphosate is “environmentally benign” and has an acute toxicity level lower than that of table salt, vinegar, chocolate or coffee.  

Only one agency, the France-based International Agency for Cancer Research, says otherwise. It calls glyphosate a “probable” human carcinogen, based primarily on two mice studies, and has been accused of manipulating even those studies (while ignoring contradictory studies) to get its desired results.

IARC does not do its own research. Instead, it relies on third-party “exposure tests” in laboratory animals to determine whether a chemical, food or occupational activity might cause cancer – even if only at extremely high levels that no animal or human would ever be exposed to in the real world. It refuses to utilize actual “risk assessments” – the modern approach that examines the exposure level at which a substance might actually have an adverse effect on laboratory animals, and presumably people.

The agency’s glyphosate review was proposed by a US government statistician who then helped design the study and served as special advisor to the IARC “working group” that evaluated it. He allegedly did this while also being paid as an advisor to the anti-chemical Environmental Defense Fund, on unspecified “other issues” for law firms involved in the glyphosate cases, and now as an expert witness in the cases.

Former National Cancer Institute statistician Dr. Robert Tarone discovered that IARC’s glyphosate review panel based its carcinogenicity finding on just two studies of mice that for two years were fed diets containing up to 30,000 ppm glyphosate! In the male mice, they found cancerous tumors in 1 of 49 mice at 0 ppm, 0 of 49 mice at 500 ppm, 1 of 50 mice at 5,000 ppm, and 2 of 50 mice at 30,000 ppm. In other words, they found the same rates cancer at 0 and 5,000 ppm and only one more tumor at 30,000 ppm. Data excluded from IARC’s report found no tumors in female mice, even at 30,000 ppm!

And yet, incredibly, the IARC ruling is being used by predatory tort lawyers to claim that glyphosate causes leukemia, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, Parkinson’s disease, lung, brain and thyroid cancer, heart and kidney disease, nerve damage, multiple sclerosis, respiratory illness, birth defects and infertility.

Just as bad, judges in the cases thus far nevertheless allowed plaintiff lawyers to present the IARC findings, and inflame juries with lurid tales of corrupt corporate criminals and admittedly tragic stories of clients suffering from cancer allegedly from using Roundup The judges prevented Bayer attorneys from presenting evidence from EPA and other agencies that glyphosate is safe and non-carcinogenic.

Equally amazing, the mass-tort lawyers were permitted to assert (and persuade jurors) that their clients were afflicted with cancer solely because of glyphosate – and not from any of the more than 500 other chemicals, substances, industrial processes and occupations that IARC has ruled are definite, probable or possible human carcinogens ... even though their clients were almost certainly exposed to many of them.

At no point, it appears, were defense attorneys able to ask questions about the cancer-victim plaintiffs’ family cancer histories; eating, exercise and sleeping habits; consumption of high-fat foods versus fruits and vegetables; and other lifestyle choices that play significant roles in whether people get cancer.

At no point, it appears, were victims asked how often they might have been exposed to sunlight, asbestos, processed meats, acetaldehyde in alcoholic beverages or any of the 116 other substances and activities in IARC’s list of definite human carcinogens. Nor were they asked about their exposure to anabolic steroids, malathion, red meat, emissions from high-temperature food frying or any of the 78 other substances and agents (besides glyphosate) in IARC’s list of probable human carcinogens (or 314 possible carcinogens).

Even more astonishing, the plaintiffs and their lawyers were never compelled to explain how they and their doctors and other experts were able to conclude that family history, lifestyle choices and exposure to dozens or even hundreds of other substances on IARC’s lists of human carcinogens caused or contributed to their cancer – and that their cancer was due solely to their exposure to glyphosate.

Just as outrageous, juries were permitted to grant massive punitive damage awards – which require clear evidence that Bayer (and Monsanto) had deliberately engaged in harmful conduct with malice or deception. In view of all the issues and facts presented here, in my medical journal paper and by many other sources, assertions of malice or deception are simply not supported by any persuasive evidence.

Collusion, corruption, fraud and billion-dollar payoffs have become an epidemic, in courtrooms and regulatory agencies, in medical and scientific journals, and beyond. They make it essential that the US Supreme Court take these cases on appeal – perhaps under Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals.

That 1993 decision requires that scientific evidence must be relevant, reliable, peer-reviewed, and confirmed by more than just circumstantial links between an alleged cause and the injury in question. That standard is especially important where, as seems to be the case with glyphosate, the evidence and expert testimony resulted from research conducted for the purpose of litigation.

With looming litigation likely to include breakfast cereals “contaminated” with traces of glyphosate or GMO grains, the Supremes should set guideline for how far law firms can go in setting up and pursuing cases, influencing judges and jurors, and working (colluding) with regulatory agencies, activist groups, expert witnesses, journalists and others in fomenting, litigating and supporting their lawsuits.

Transparency and integrity are essential, in litigation, elections, legislation, regulation and climate science.  

Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books, reports and articles on energy, environmental, climate and human rights issues.

 

The Hidden Agenda Behind the Roundup Lawsuit Campaign

Eliminating glyphosate would drastically reduce feed crop yields, prompting a major rise in food costs, especially meat. It would green-light more bad science and enrich more bottom-feeding lawyers while punishing farmers and consumers.

Julie Kellyn December 26th, 2019

A Virginia lawyer arrested earlier this month for extortion should bring much-needed attention to one of the biggest legal, scientific, and environmental scams in recent memory: The case against Roundup, a weedkiller used on farms and open spaces in more than 160 countries around the world.

Timothy Litzenburg, a Charlottesville attorney, has been charged with threatening an unnamed company unless it paid his $200 million shakedown. The unidentified company, according to the federal indictment, manufactures glyphosate, the active chemical in Roundup.........

The IARC is populated with green activists with a grudge against Monsanto. One IARC advisor now is a paid legal expert for the plaintiffs in several Monsanto-glyphosate lawsuits. (For years, that scandal was under investigation by House Republicans and ended after Democrats took power.) As I wrote in 2017, “it is now obvious that this [IARC] report was prepared and promoted by dishonest activists to wage an international assault on a safe, necessary chemical just because they hate the company that makes it.”................To Read More...

California judges provide stage for kangaroo court justice over Roundup

By Paul Driessen

San Francisco area juries have awarded cancer patients some $80 million each, based on claims that the active ingredient in Roundup weedkiller, caused their cancer – and that Bayer-Monsanto negligently or deliberately failed to warn consumers that the glyphosate it manufactures is carcinogenic. (It’s not.) Judges reduced the original truly outrageous awards of $289 million and even $1 billion per plaintiff!

Meanwhile, ubiquitous ads are still trolling for new clients, saying anyone who ever used Roundup and now has Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma or other cancer could be the next jackpot justice winner. Mass tort plaintiff law firms have lined up 18,500 additional “corporate victims” for glyphosate litigation alone.

Introduced in 1974, glyphosate is licensed in 130 countries. Millions of farmers, homeowners and gardeners have made it the world’s most widely used herbicide – and one of the most intensely studied chemicals in history. Four decades and 3,300 studies by respected agencies and organizations worldwide have concluded that glyphosate is safe and non-carcinogenic, based on assessments of actual risk.

Reviewers include the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, European Food Safety Authority, European Chemicals Agency, UN Food and Agriculture Organization, Germany’s Institute for Risk Assessment, and Australia’s Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority. Another reviewer, Health Canada, noted that “no pesticide regulatory authority in the world considers glyphosate to be a cancer risk to humans at the levels at which humans are currently exposed.” Therefore no need to warn anyone.

The National Cancer Institute’s ongoing Agricultural Health Study evaluated 54,000 farmers and commercial pesticide applicators for over two decades – and likewise found no glyphosate-cancer link.

Only the France-based International Agency for Cancer Research (IARC), says otherwise – and it based its conclusions on just eight studies. Even worse, IARC manipulated at least some of these studies to get the results it wanted. Subsequent reviews by epidemiologist Dr. Geoffrey Kabat, National Cancer Institute statistician Dr. Robert Tarone, investigative journalist Kate Kelland, “RiskMonger” Dr. David Zaruk and other investigators have demonstrated that the IARC process was tainted beyond repair.

The IARC results should never have been allowed in court. But the judges in the first three cases let the tort lawyers bombard the jury with IARC cancer claims, and went even further. In the Hardeman case, Judge Vincent Chhabria blocked the introduction of EPA analyses that concluded “glyphosate is not likely to be carcinogenic in humans,” based on its careful review of many of the studies just mentioned.

He said he wanted “to avoid wasting time or misleading the jury, because the primary inquiry is what the scientific studies show, not what the EPA concluded they show.” However, IARC didn’t do any original studies either. It just concluded that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic,” meaning studies it reviewed found limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans, plus sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in lab animals that had been exposed to very high doses or lower doses for prolonged periods of time. In other words, under conditions that no animal or human would ever be exposed to in the real world.

It is also instructive to look at the three San Francisco area courtroom proceedings from another angle – an additional line of questioning that would have put glyphosate and Roundup in a very different light, and might have changed the outcome of these trials. Defense attorneys could have asked:  

Can you describe your family cancer history ... your eating, exercise and sleeping habits ... how much you eat high-fat foods ... how often you eat fruits and vegetables ... and your other lifestyle choices that doctors and other experts now know play significant roles in whether or not people get cancer?

How many times in your life [Johnson is 47 years old; Hardeman 70; Alva Pilliod 77; Alberta Pilliod 75] do you estimate you were exposed to substances on IARC’s list of Group 1 definite human carcinogens – including sunlight, acetaldehyde in alcoholic beverages, aflatoxin in peanuts, asbestos, cadmium in batteries, lindane ... or any of the 125 other substances and activities in Group 1? Have you ever smoked? How often have you been exposed to secondhand smoke? How often have you eaten bacon, sausage or other processed meats – which are also in Group 1?

How many times have you been exposed to any of IARC’s Group 2A probable human carcinogens – not just glyphosate ... but also anabolic steroids, creosote, diazinon, dieldrin, malathion, emissions from high-temperature food frying, shift work ... or any of the 75 other substances and activities in Group 2A? How often have you consumed beef or very hot beverages – likewise in Group 2A?

How many times have you been exposed to any of IARC’s Group 2B possible human carcinogens – including bracken ferns, chlordane, diesel fuel, fumonisin, inorganic lead, low frequency magnetic fields, malathion, parathion, titanium oxide in white paint, pickled vegetables, caffeic acid in coffee, tea, apples, broccoli, kale, and other fruits and vegetables ... ... or any of the 200 other substances and activities in Group 2B?

Pyrethrin pesticides used by organic farmers are powerful neurotoxins that are very toxic to bees, cats and fish – and have been linked by EPA and other experts to leukemia and other cancers and other health problems. How often have you eaten organic foods and perhaps been exposed to pyrethrins?

Large quantities of glyphosate have been manufactured for years in China and other countries. How do you know the glyphosate you were exposed to was manufactured by Bayer, and not one of them?

In view of all these exposures, please explain how you, your doctors, your lawyers and the experts you consulted concluded that none of your family history ... none of your lifestyle choices ... none of your exposures to dozens or even hundreds of other substances on IARC’s lists of carcinogens ... caused or contributed to your cancer – and that your cancer is due solely to your exposure to glyphosate.

Put another way, please explain exactly how you and your experts separated and quantified all these various exposures and lifestyle decisions – and concluded that Roundup from Bayer-Monsanto was the sole reason you got cancer – and all these other factors played no role whatsoever.

News accounts do not reveal whether Bayer-Monsanto lawyers asked these questions – or whether they tried to ask them, but the judges disallowed the questions. In any event, the bottom line is this:

It is bad enough that the IARC studies at the center of these jackpot justice lawsuits are the product of rampant collusion, misconduct and even fraud in the way IARC concluded glyphosate is a “probable human carcinogen.” It is worse that these cancer trials have been driven by plaintiff lawyers’ emotional appeals to jurors’ largely misplaced fears of chemicals and minimal knowledge of chemicals, chemical risks, medicine and cancer – resulting in outrageous awards of $80 million or more.

Worst of all, our Federal District Courts have let misconduct by plaintiff lawyers drive these lawsuits; prevented defense attorneys from effectively countering IARC cancer claims and discussing the agency’s gross misconduct; and barred defense attorneys from presenting the extensive evidence that glyphosate is not carcinogenic to humans. The trials have been textbook cases of kangaroo court justice.

The cases are heading to appeal, ultimately to the U.S. Supreme Court. We can only hope appellate judges will return sanity, fairness and justice to the nation’s litigation process. Otherwise our legal system will be irretrievably corrupted; products, technologies, companies and industries will likely be driven out of existence; and fraud, emotion and anarchy will reign.

Jackpot-justice law firms and their anti-chemical activist allies are already targeting cereals that have “detectable” levels of glyphosate: a few parts per billion or trillion, where 1 ppt is equivalent to 1 second in 32,000 years. Talc and benzene – foundations for numerous consumer products – are already under attack. Advanced technology neonicotinoid pesticides could be next.

It’s all part of a coordinated, well-funded attack on America, free enterprise and technology, using social media, litigation, intimidation and confrontation. Our legislatures and courts need to rein it in.  

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books and articles on energy and environmental policy.

Glyphosate-based herbicides kill cancer cells and have ‘no significant toxicity’ to humans? Another study says ‘yes’—but what does it mean?

Cameron English | July 31, 2019

While biotech giant Bayer battles thousands of lawsuits alleging its weed killer Roundup causes cancer, several studies published over the last six years have suggested that glyphosate, the active ingredient in the the much-maligned herbicide, may actually prohibit cancer cell growth.

A paper published June 24 in the Journal of Environmental Science and Health, Part B is the fourth such study since 2013 to suggest that Roundup may have cancer-fighting properties. The authors reported that the co-formulants—substances that enhance the performance of the active ingredient glyphosate—inhibited the growth of cancerous human liver, lung and nerve cells, while glyphosate was relatively harmless:

Glyphosate-based herbicides are broad-spectrum pesticides widely used in the world …. but recently, there has been an ongoing controversy regarding their carcinogenicity …. Data obtained showed that all tested ethoxylated formulants and their mixtures with declared active ingredient glyphosate isopropylamine salt (GP) have significant inhibitory effect on cell proliferation, while the declared active ingredient has no significant toxicity.

If Roundup or one of its ingredients turns out to be an effective cancer treatment, it would be a stunning twist in the midst of Bayer’s ongoing legal battle. But that’s not yet the appropriate conclusion to draw from this evidence. The four existing studies are very preliminary. Three of them, including the June 24 paper, are in-vitro or cell culture studies, which involve dousing cells in chemicals to see what happens, a notoriously unreliable way to measure real-world toxicity.........To Read More....