Judge cuts $2 billion award for couple with cancer to $86.7 million in Roundup lawsuit

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Washington Post

Business
Judge cuts $2 billion award for couple with cancer to $86.7 million in Roundup lawsuit

By Taylor Telford
July 26 at 1:04 PM

A judge slashed 95 percent off the $2 billion awarded a California couple who developed cancer after using Roundup weed-killer.

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Winifred Y. Smith on Thursday cut the couple’s damages to $86.7 million on the basis that the judgment handed down by an Oakland jury in May had vastly exceeded legal precedent. It’s the third time in less than a year that Bayer AG has had a jury award significantly reduced in a lawsuit alleging the world’s most widely used herbicide causes cancer. The German pharmaceutical and life sciences giant is appealing, or plans to appeal, all verdicts.

Last June, when Bayer acquired Monsanto for $63 billion to create the world’s biggest seed and agrochemical company, it inherited a mountain of legal trouble tied to Roundup: More than 13,000 lawsuits have been filed in the U.S., and the numbers are climbing.

Bayer categorically denies Roundup and its active ingredient, glyphosate, cause cancer, and maintains that both are safe for human use. Since the Monsanto acquisition, Bayer’s value has fallen roughly 45 percent.
....

Though the judge substantially cut the damages, she supported the jury’s finding that Monsanto was to blame for Alva and Alberta Pilliod’s cancer, and that the company repeatedly tried to bury evidence about Roundup’s health risks at the expense of consumer safety.
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Taylor Telford is a reporter covering national and breaking news. Follow https://twitter.com/taylormtelford



Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/07/26/judge-cuts-billion-award-couple-with-cancer-million-roundup-lawsuit/

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Judge cuts $2 billion award for couple with cancer to $86.7 million in Roundup lawsuit

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[Jopin Klobe]

1. Yeah ... well ...

... wouldn't want to hurt the profitable poisoners ...

[sandensea]

2. Plus a nice kickback doesn't hurt either.

Living in the Bay Area ain't cheap.

[Cryptoad]

3. MonoSanto's Agent Orange ver 2.0

[Drahthaardogs]

9. Comparing the cancer promotion of glyphosate (Roundup)

To 2,3,7-8 TCDD - the cancer causing dioxin in SOME batches of agent orange is ridiculous. I'm an environmental toxicologist. I have worked with both chemicals in my career. The data supporting glyphosate as a carcinogen is weak. The other is the worst of the dioxins.

[safeinOhio]

4. If only we treated the 7th Amendment like

we do the 2nd.

In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Perhaps I just don't read them correctly.

[Backseat Driver]

5. Although that's a steep cut to the award, this

surely showed what a jury hearing the evidence thought of Monsanto/Bayer's poison. No award in the world would bring back that poor affected victim, but hey, $86.7 mil ain't all bad. I hope the verdict opens the door to other litigants. Wonder if they'll ever see a penny ??? One thing is certain: the lawyers will still celebrate.

[YOHABLO]

6. You think that couple will get $86.7 million. Oh hell no. The bulk of that money will go to lawyers.

Glyphosate is so rampant in our food supply it's no wonder Monsanto doesn't want anyone to know how harmful it is? Of course they're going to say it's safe.

[bucolic_frolic]

7. What's a life worth?

[Farmer-Rick]

8. Round Up is causing so much damage that we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg.

Round up is poured all over our wheat, soy beans and corn. When you go on a low carb diet and you suddenly feel so much better. It's because you have seriously decreased the amount of round up you are eating.

Round Up has been found in everyone's blood, even new born babies.

"This is the first study of GLY exposure in US pregnant women using urine specimens as a direct measure of exposure. We found that > 90% of pregnant women had detectable GLY levels and that these levels correlated significantly with shortened pregnancy lengths. Although our study cohort was small and regional and had limited racial/ethnic diversity, it provides direct evidence of maternal GLY exposure and a significant correlation with shortened pregnancy." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5844093/

Trust me I have seen how Round Up, a poison and drain cleaner, is used not only to kill the weeds around the Round Up ready seeds and plants....3 times throughout the season, it is also poured on the just harvested grain to keep the grains from sticking together and flow easier.

The poison has been responsible for a mysterious series of deaths in South America and Sri Lanka. It seems if you combine hard water, heat and exposure to Round Up it will destroy your kidneys. http://panswiss.org/newsroom/glyphosate-linked-to-epidemic-of-kidney-failure-but-regulation-obstructed/

I think it is strange that Bayer bought Monsanto when they knew law suits were coming.

[Drahthaardogs]

10. You feel better because your blood sugar stabilizes

And you are less bloated.

[Farmer-Rick]

11. Well there's that too.

I'm low carbing it and every time I get a craving, I think about what gets dosed with round up and I feel better.

Getting your insulin levels under control and losing weight are also pluses.

But I have to wonder how much Round Up is damaging us in ways we don't even know.

[Drahthaardogs]

12. I'm a toxicologist and I hate to say this but

You are unlikely to FEEL any ill effects from glyphosate. It doesn't work that way.

[Farmer-Rick]

13. I understand that it attaches to nephrotoxic metals collecting in the kidney

"Here, we have hypothesized the association of using glyphosate, the most widely used herbicide in the disease endemic area and its unique metal chelating properties... Furthermore, it may explain similar kidney disease epidemics observed in Andra Pradesh (India) and Central America. Although glyphosate alone does not cause an epidemic of chronic kidney disease, it seems to have acquired the ability to destroy the renal tissues of thousands of farmers when it forms complexes with a localized geo environmental factor (hardness) and nephrotoxic metals. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3945589/

Not to mention the shorten gestational periods for humans found in the study I originally posted. "However, higher GLY urine levels were significantly correlated with shortened gestational lengths (r = − 0.28, p = 0.02)." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5844093/

So it kind of does work to harm humans.

[Drahthaardogs]

14. But the statement that you would feel better

Just a week or two into eliminating it from your diet and attributing that to glyphosate probably doesn't hold water.