November 17, 2017 – San Diego, CA. What happens when the world’s most hated company has one of its biggest money making products labeled a carcinogen in California? It heads to federal court to try and shut down the science and sweep the study’s findings under the rug. They already lost in state California’s court.
This is what Monsanto is trying to do now that the state of California has declared its Roundup product causes cancer.
BREAKING NEWS: Federal Judge Rules Monsanto Cancer lawsuit may move forward.
July 12, 2018 – San Diego, CA. U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria made it clear that Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer product lawsuit should be allowed to proceed.
There are close to 5,000 lawsuits currently filed against Monsanto claiming its product called Roundup causes Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a type of blood cancer from exposure to this chemical spray.
This court verdict is a step forward for these claimants. These lawsuits were filed throughout the U.S. and were consolidated before Judge Chhabria in In re: Roundup Products Liability Litigation (MDL No. 2741).
Monsanto is Fighting California on Roundup Warning Labels.
After losing in state court Monsanto sued the state in federal court last Wednesday. In its preliminary statement they say – “bring this suit to prevent Defendants from mandating false, misleading, and highly controversial cancer warnings concerning the herbicide glyphosate on a wide variety of food, agricultural, industrial, and lawn and garden products.”
Monsanto has joined forces with farm groups from six states and enlisted national groups as well to help in their court battle. The claim they bring is California’s “treatment of glyphosate” will cost them billions of dollars and “change the way of life” for farmers using Roundup. 
Seems the company doesn’t want the public to view warning labels applied to all packages of Roundup. They are so hurt they claim the labels violate federal guidelines and even their First Amendment rights.
“Had California conducted any sort of reasonable scientific review before taking the action challenged here, it would have determined – as more than a dozen other global regulatory and scientific agencies already have – that the cancer listing at issue is false and inappropriate,”
Ultimately the company is seeking an injunction that would bar the state from requiring warning labels on all glyphosate products due to First Amendment and due process violations.
The History and Facts about Monsanto’s Roundup.
Roundup is manufactured by Monsanto Company, a St. Louis-based sustainable agriculture company. It employs more than 21,000 people worldwide, nearly half of whom are based in the United States. Monsanto brought in about $15 billion in revenue in 2015.
Roundup is an herbicide used to kill weeds and grass on home lawns, in gardens and on agricultural fields. The product was first introduced to the consumer marketplace in 1976 by Monsanto Company and has since been used by millions of consumers and industry professionals alike.
Roundup is currently one of the most widely used herbicides in the world. It is sprayed on millions of acres of farmland in the United States alone, and is a staple for many home gardeners. Yet in 2015, Roundup’s active ingredient was determined to be a probable carcinogen by an entity of the World Health Organization, and has been linked to deadly forms of blood cancer in numerous studies published in the last 15 years.
Roundup used by Big Agriculture’s factory farms and around people’s homes.
Roundup is used on farms and other agricultural operations to kill unwanted weeds from crop fields. In 1996, Roundup’s manufacturer Monsanto introduced Roundup Ready crops – genetically engineered seeds that were resistant to the herbicide. This means farmers could spray Roundup directly onto Roundup Ready crops during the growing period and only the weeds would be killed.
The company first introduced RR soybean and corn seeds, but soon cotton, alfalfa, canola and sugar beet seeds came to market.
Monsanto has also experimented with RR wheat, but discontinued trials even after gaining approval in 2004 from the Food and Drug Administration, which said the seeds were as safe as conventional wheat for humans and animals.
Much controversy has surrounded the use of RR crops and other genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. There are few long-term studies to show the safety and efficacy of GMOs in the human body and environment. GMO crops have also led to an increase in the use of pesticides across the United States, with one study estimating an additional 500 pounds of pesticides were used on America’s farmlands since the introduction of herbicide-resistant seed technology.
Roundup Weed & Grass Killer is used to keep weeds at bay in areas other than at home and on the farm. Roundup is often used by commercial nurseries and golf courses to control pest populations and to clear unwanted growth.
Is there a link between Roundup exposure and cancer – many studies say yes.
Dozens of studies have been published since the late 1990s analyzing the safety of Roundup’s main ingredient, glyphosate. Many of these studies link the weed killer to a deadly form of blood cancer called non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) and its subtypes.
A 2002 study published in the journal Leukemia & Lymphoma pooled results from two case-control studies and found people exposed to glyphosate were at a three-fold increased risk of developing NHL or a rarer subtype called hairy cell leukemia.
A 2003 study published in the BMJ’s Occupational and Environmental Medicine pooled data from three case-control studies of NHL conducted in the Midwest by the National Cancer Institute in the 1980s. The study found that men who lived or worked on a farm as adults had a 10% increase in risk for developing NHL compared to men who did not. The study also found that exposure to glyphosate in particular doubled these individuals’ risks for developing NHL.
More recent studies have also linked glyphosate to an increase in risk for NHL and its subtypes.
A Swedish study published in 2008 in the International Journal of Cancer found exposure to glyphosate increased a person’s risk for developing NHL by more than double and increased a person’s risk for developing a subtype of NHL, called B-cell lymphoma, by 87%.
In 2014, a study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found people exposed to glyphosate at work had a two-fold increased risk of developing B-cell lymphoma.
Even a study sponsored by Monsanto, published this year in the Journal of Environmental Sciences and Health, found a 40% increase in risk for B-cell lymphoma and a 30% increase in risk for NHL when exposed to the herbicide. The authors of the Monsanto-sponsored study were quick to point out that no “causal relationship” has been found between glyphosate exposure and NHL, meaning they could not necessarily prove it was the glyphosate that caused the increased risk in NHL or its subtypes.
Many of these studies found a dose-dependent relationship between exposure to Roundup and the development of NHL. This means the more Roundup people were exposed to, the more their risk increased for developing NHL.
Sources: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12148884
http://oem.bmj.com/content/60/9/e11.long
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ijc.23589/full
