(April 22, 2019) NYC leaders have moved to ban Roundup (with glyphosate) in city parks. Two councilmen are working to stop the city park system from using the carcinogenic weed killer which raises the risk of non-Hodgkins lymphoma. They’ve introduced legislation that would ban city agencies from spraying glyphosate-based weed killers and other pesticides in parks and other public spaces.
Environmental Health News reports that the NYC council action is the latest in a series that shows a growing concern over pesticide use, particularly the products made by Monsanto. It is another indication of a groundswell of people, homeowners, educators, farmers, business leaders and others who are rejecting Monsanto – and now Bayer – assurances that glyphosate-based pesticides are safe.
Growing Movement to Ban Glyphosate
Cities, school districts, and suppliers across the US are increasingly halting use of Monsanto pesticide products. Residents in Leesburg, Virginia called on the town’s officials last week to stop using glyphosate along area stream banks, and local school children also petitioned for a ban.
Since the World Health Organization declared glyphosate, the main listed active ingredient in Roundup and other Monsanto concoctions, a probable carcinogen, Monsanto has lost every jury verdict over its best-selling poison. In the last year it has been ordered to pay Roundup non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma victims $289 million (later reduced to $78 million) and $80 million, with a third Roundup trial now in progress in California.
Discovery in the lawsuits against Monsanto has uncovered a trove of internal Monsanto emails in which company executives discuss ghostwriting articles for academics like disgraced corporate apologist Henry I. Miller and others. The Monsanto Papers have shown how hard the company has worked and how much money it has spent, to spin all studies over Roundup in its favor, regardless of the toxicity and the links to cancer that many studies not sponsored by Monsanto have found.
Trial evidence has also shown Monsanto worked closely with the Environmental Protection Agency to block a toxicity review of glyphosate by a separate government agency. See Monsanto EPA Collusion?
Monsanto Defense
Monsanto has claimed in all of the trials, and in full page propaganda missives published in the New York Times and elsewhere, that hundreds of studies and decades of Roundup use have proven it safe. Monsanto has also been accused by plaintiffs’ attorneys of “geofencing,” specifically targeting San Francisco juries’ zip codes in social media ads and notices, as well as peppering them with pro-glyphosate propaganda in local newspapers. Court testimony has shown that virtually all of Monsanto’s studies were too short term to be relevant, or were skewed in their design for one reason or another, always erring on the side of exonerating glyphosate and Monsanto. The company also spent millions — trial evidence has shown — trying to marginalize and discredit the WHO after it determined in 20015 that glyphosate is a probable carcinogen.
Many corporations have also been paying attention to the trials and their results.
Retail giant Costco has stopped selling Roundup. A Florida-based golf and landscaping supply store called Harrel’s stopped offering Monsanto’s Roundup on March 1 this year. CEO Jack Harrell, Jr. said the company’s insurance supplier will no longer insure it. In addition, Pike Nurseries, a large independent company, said it would no longer stock Roundup due to declining sales.
More than 11,000 cancer victims are suing Monsanto, alleging exposure to Roundup and other glyphosate products the company sells caused them to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Longtime Monsanto researcher Carey Gilliam of US Right To Know, reported that Susquehanna Financial Group analyst Tom Claps has warned shareholders to brace for a global settlement of between $2.5 billion and $4.5 billion. “It’s not a matter of ‘if’ Bayer will reach a global Roundup settlement,” Claps told investors in a recent report. “It is a matter of ‘when.”
Monsanto MDL Judge Orders Mediation
U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria has ordered Bayer to enter into mediation, to discuss just such a potential settlement of the Roundup litigation. He put the next Monsanto trial in his court on hold to give mediation a chance to work for a settlement.
Related
- Monsanto Lawsuit | Lawyer | Roundup Cancer
- Monsanto spends Millions to Promote Pesticides, GMO Lies
- Roundup causes Cancer, Experts tell Judge
- Monsanto, EPA Ties Cancerous
by Matthews & Associates
