Monsanto paid American Council on Science and Health front group to hide evidence

Dr. Joseph Mercola
Mercola.com

Monsanto's new owner, Bayer, has been slammed with judgments in the first three Roundup lawsuits to go to trial. The verdicts, which have sided with plaintiffs in all cases so far, have found not only that Roundup herbicide caused the plaintiffs' cancers but also that Monsanto engaged in malice, oppression or fraud in their attempts to cover up Roundup's toxicity.¹

Some of the evidence brought to light during the trials has been particularly eye-opening, including internal emails showing that Monsanto paid an industry front group for the favor of publishing pro-glyphosate media, right around the time the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) determined it to be a probable carcinogen.²
 

Monsanto paid front group for glyphosate-favorable content

The American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) is a nonprofit organization that claims to be a "pro-science consumer advocacy organization" with the focus of publically supporting "evidence-based science and medicine." Their website states:³

We do not represent any industry. We were created to be the science alternative to "news" that is often little more than hype based on exaggerated findings. We help policymakers see past scaremongers and activist groups who have targeted GMOs, vaccines, conventional agriculture, nuclear power, natural gas, and 'chemicals,' while peddling health scares and fad diets. We fight back against activists who have attacked the credibility of the overwhelming consensus of academic and private sector scientists who dispute their claims, undermining the integrity of the scientific enterprise.

ACSH also claims to be funded mostly by readers, but their financial statements do not reveal who, exactly, their more than $1 million in yearly revenue comes from.⁴ In 2015, however, internal emails revealed that Monsanto contributed to ACSH, with impeccable timing, as IARC's glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup) was set to be released.

The emails were first revealed as evidence during Dewayne Johnson's Roundup lawsuit. The trial, the first to be heard, ended with Monsanto being ordered to pay $289 million in damages to Johnson, although the award was later reduced to $78 million.

The evidence made another appearance during the third Roundup case, in which a married couple, Alva and Alberta Pilliod, claimed they both developed Non-Hodgkin lymphoma after regular use of Roundup. The jury decided in the Pilliods' favor, ordering the chemical giant to pay $2 billion to its victims. 

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From Glyphosate to Front Groups: Fraud, Deception and Toxic Tactics

Colin Todhunter
Off Guardian

nvironmentalist Dr Rosemary Mason has just written to the Editor-in-Chief of the British Medical Journal and the British Medical Association Council Chairman, Chaand Nagpaul.

Her purpose is to not only draw attention to the impact of biocides, not least that of glyphosate, on health and the environment but also to bring attention to the corruption that allows this to continue.

Along with her letter, she enclosed a 13-page document. Readers can access the fully referenced document here: European Chemicals Agency classifies glyphosate as a substance that causes serious eye damage (or see the embedded version below).

It is worth reading in full to appreciate the conflicts of interest and the corruption that has led to the rise in certain illnesses and the destruction of the natural environment.

By way of a brief summary, the key points raised by Dr Mason and her claims include the following.

• The European Chemicals Agency classifies glyphosate as a substance that causes serious eye damage. There has been a massive increase in the use of glyphosate in recent years. An increase in cataracts has been verified by epidemiological studies in England and by a 2016 WHO report.
• There are shockingly high levels of weed killer in UK breakfast cereals. After testing these cereals at the Health Research Institute in Iowa, Dr Fagan, director of the centre, said: “These results are consistently concerning. The levels consumed in a single daily helping of any one of these cereals, even the one with the lowest level of contamination, is sufficient to put the person’s glyphosate levels above the levels that cause fatty liver disease in rats (and likely in people).”
• The amount of glyphosate in tap water in South Wales has increased tenfold in a very short period.
• Glyphosate is largely responsible for the destruction of biodiversity and an increase in the prevalence of many serious health conditions.
• There are massive conflicts of interest throughout various agencies in the EU that ensure harmful agrochemicals like glyphosate come to market and remain there.
• In fact, a global industry has emerged to give ‘advice’ on biocides regulation. This results in regulatory bodies effectively working to further the commercial interests of the pesticide industry.
• The European Food Safety Authority sanctioned increased maximum pesticide residue levels (MRL) at the request of industry (Monsanto in this case, to 100 times the previously authorised MRL).
• The Washington-based International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) is used by corporate backers to counter public health policies. Its members have occupied key positions on EU and UN regulatory panels. It is, however, an industry lobby group that masquerades as a scientific health charity. The ILSI describes its mission as “pursuing objectivity, clarity and reproducibility” to “benefit the public good”. But researchers from the University of Cambridge, Bocconi University in Milan, and the US Right to Know campaign assessed over 17,000 pages of documents under US freedom of information laws to present evidence of influence peddling.
• ILSI Vice-President, Prof Alan Boobis, is currently the Chairman of the UK Committee on Toxicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment (CoT) (2015-2021). He was directly responsible for authorising chemicals such as glyphosate, chlorothalonil, clothianidin and chlorpyrifos that are destroying human health and creating a crisis in biodiversity. His group and others have authorised glyphosate repeatedly. He and David Coggon, the previous Chairman of CoT (2008-2015), were appointed as experts on Science Advice for Policy by European Academies (SAPEA), a group allied with the agrochemical industry and is fighting for higher pesticide exposure.
• Jean-Claude Juncker the President of the European Commission who, against a petition from more than 1.5 million European citizens, re-authorised glyphosate in December 2017 for a further five years. He set up the Science Advisory Mechanism, aiming to put industry-friendly personnel on various committees.

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New Monsanto documents expose cozy connection to Reuters reporter Kate Kelland

Carey Gillam
usrtk.org

We knew from previously released documents that Reuters reporter Kate Kelland was a key connection for Monsanto in its endeavor to undermine and discredit the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) scientists who classified glyphosate as a probable carcinogen in 2015. Now we have additional evidence of the coziness of the connection.

Not only did Kelland write a 2017 story that Monsanto asked her to write in exactly the way Monsanto executive Sam Murphey asked her to write it, (without disclosing to readers that Monsanto was the source,) but now we see evidence that a draft of a separate story Kelland did about glyphosate was delivered to Monsanto before it was published, a practice typically frowned on by news outlets.

The emails shows the story written by Kelland was emailed before it was published to Murphey with the subject line "My draft, Confidential."

The story, headlined "New study on Monsanto weed killer to feed into crucial EU vote," was about preliminary findings of an unpublished study by an Italian scientist showing that experimental rats exposed to glyphosate at levels equivalent to those allowed in humans showed no initial adverse reaction. The final version was published on April 13, 2017.

And another newly released email details how Monsanto's fingerprints were on at least two other Kelland stories. The March 1, 2016 email speaks of the involvement of Monsanto's "Red Flag" campaign in an already published Reuters story that was critical of IARC and the desire to influence a second similar story Reuters was planning. Red Flag is a Dublin-based PR and lobbying firm that works to defend glyphosate safety and promote pro-glyphosate messaging via third parties such as farmer groups. According to the partly redacted email, "following engagement by Red Flag a number of months ago, the first piece was quite critical of IARC." The email goes on: "You may also be aware that Red Flag is in touch with Reuters regarding the second report in the series..."

A little over a month later, Reuters published Kelland's story headlined "Special Report: How the World Health Organization's cancer agency confuses consumers."  

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See also:  The International Agency for Research on Cancer is under fire for withholding 'carcinogenic glyphosate' documents

Glyphosate Worse Than We Could Imagine

F. William Engdahl
New Eastern Outlook

As new studies continue to point to a direct link between the widely-used glyphosate herbicide and various forms of cancer, the agribusiness lobby fights ferociously to ignore or discredit evidence of human and other damage. A second US court jury case just ruled that Monsanto, now a part of the German Bayer AG, must pay $ 81 million in damages to plaintiff Edwin Hardeman who contracted non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma cancer. The ruling and a line-up of another 11,000 pending cases in US courts going after the effects of glyphosate, have hit Bayer AG hard with the company announcing several thousand layoffs as its stock price plunges. 

In a trial in San Francisco the jury was unanimous in their verdict that Monsanto Roundup weed-killer, based on glyphosate, had been responsible for Hardeman’s cancer. His attorneys stated, “It is clear from Monsanto’s actions that it does not care whether Roundup causes cancer, focusing instead on manipulating public opinion and undermining anyone who raises genuine and legitimate concerns about Roundup.” It is the second defeat for the lawyers of Monsanto after another jury ruled in 2018 that Glyphosate-based Roundup was responsible for the cancer illness of a California school grounds-keeper who contracted the same form of cancer after daily spraying school grounds with Roundup over years, unprotected. There a jury found Monsanto guilty of “malice and oppression” in that company executives, based on internal email discovery, knew that their glyphosate products could cause cancer and suppressed this information from the public.

New independent study shows that those with highest exposure to glyphosate have a 41% increased risk of developing non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) cancer. A meta-analysis of six studies containing nearly 65,000 participants looked at links between glyphosate-based herbicides and immune-suppression, endocrine disruption and genetic alterations. The authors found “the same key finding: exposure to GBHs (glyphosate-based herbicides) are associated with an increased risk of NHL (Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma).” Further, they stated that glyphosate “alters the gut microbiome,” and that that could “impact the immune system, promote chronic inflammation, and contribute to the susceptibility of invading pathogens.” Glyphosate also ”may act as an endocrine disrupting chemical because it has been found recently to alter sex hormone production” in both male and female rats.

In a long-term animal study by French scientists under Gilles Eric Seralini, Michael Antoniou and associates, it was demonstrated that even ultra-low levels of glyphosate herbicides cause non-alcoholic liver disease. The levels the rats were exposed to, per kg of body weight, were far lower than what is allowed in our food supply. According to the Mayo Clinic, today, after four decades or more pervasive use of glyphosate pesticides, 100 million, or 1 out of 3 Americans now have liver disease. These diagnoses are in some as young as 8 years old.

But glyphosate is not only having alarming effects on human health. Soil scientists are beginning to realize the residues of glyphosate application are also having a possibly dramatic effect on soil health and nutrition, effects that can take years to restore.

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Bayer Ordered To Pay $80 Million After Losing Second Roundup Glyphosate Trial

Zero Hedge

Bayer AG has lost a second trial over claims that its Roundup weed killer causes cancer - and has been ordered by a San Fancisco jury to pay compensatory damages of $5.3 million and punitive damages of $75 million to a 70-year-old California man, Edwin Hardeman, who was diagnosed with cancer after spraying the herbicide on his property for decades. 

The plaintiff's attorneys said he developed non-Hodgkin's lymphoma after 26 years of regularly using Roundup to tackle weeds and poison oak, according to the Wall Street Journal. The active ingredient in Roundup and Ranger Pro is glyphosate, a herbicide.

Wednesday's verdict follows a similar decision last August in which a former school groundskeeper was awarded $289 million after claiming that Roundup gave him non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. 

German Bayer AG acquired the Roundup brand of glyphosate weed killers in its $66 billion purchase of Monsanto in June of last year. 

Responding to the verdict, Bayer said in a statement "We are disappointed with the jury's decision, but this verdict does not change the weight of over four decades of extensive science and the conclusions of regulators worldwide that support the safety of our glyphosate-based herbicides and that they are not carcinogenic."

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Bayer facing second trial amid claims weed killer bought from Monsanto causes cancer

RT 

 

German chemicals and pharmaceuticals giant Bayer is set to face a second US trial over allegations that its glyphosate-based weed killer Roundup causes cancer.

This is six months after the company was rocked by a $289-million verdict by a California state court.

According to Reuters, a lawsuit by California resident Edwin Hardeman against Bayer was scheduled to begin on Monday in federal rather than state court. The trial is also a test case for a larger litigation. More than 760 of the 9,300 Roundup cases are consolidated in the federal court in San Francisco that is hearing Hardeman’s case.

The company denies all allegations that Roundup or glyphosate cause cancer, claiming that decades of independent studies have shown the world’s most widely used weed killer to be safe for human use. It also notes that regulators around the world have approved the product.

Under a January ruling by US District Judge Vince Chhabria, who presides over the federal litigation, jurors in Hardeman’s case will not initially hear all the evidence presented in last year’s California trial.

Chhabria has called evidence by plaintiffs that the company allegedly attempted to influence regulators and manipulate public opinion “a distraction” from the science in the cases. He said such evidence should only go before the jury in a second trial phase if they determined that Roundup caused Hardeman’s cancer.

Evidence of corporate misconduct was seen as playing a key role in the finding by a California state court jury in August that Roundup caused another man’s non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and that Bayer’s Monsanto unit failed to warn consumers about the weed killer’s cancer risks. That jury’s $289 million damages award was later reduced to $78 million. 

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