It seemed as though Superior Court Judge Suzanne Bolanos was about to overturn the infamous $289 million verdict against Monsanto’s weed killer, glyphosate. The good news is that the San Fransico judge has upheld the ruling. The bad news is that she cut the award down to $78 million.

The compensation damages were set at $39 million and the punitive damage awarded (punishment) by the jury was $250 million. Judge Bolanos cut the punitive damage from $250 million to $39 million, matching compensation damages for a total award of $78 million. Bolanos said punitive damages that are more than seven times the size of the compensatory award are not legally justified. She said the ratio should be 1-to-1. The judge set a December 7th deadline for the plaintiff to accept a total of $78.6 million. Johnson’s spokeswoman, Diana McKinley, says that they are reviewing the decision and are yet to decide. If this award is rejected, Bayer is entitled to a new trial on just the punitive damages, according to the judge. Reportedly, Diana McKinley also said,

Related: Foods Most Likely to Contain Glyphosate

Although we believe a reduction in punitive damages was unwarranted and we are weighing the options, we are pleased the court did not disturb the verdict.”

Bayer recently acquired Monsanto. It’s stock fell more than percent in Frankfurt trading yesterday, which is the biggest drop since the Aug. 13 jury verdict.

Related: How to Avoid GMOs in 2018 – And Everything Else You Should Know About Genetic Engineering

Judge Suzanne Ramos Bolanos rejected Bayer’s arguments that the jury didn’t have legal basis to conclude that glyphosate causes cancer. Bayer says it will appeal the August 13th ruling. Bayer is facing another 8,700 plaintiffs who are saying that glyphosate causes cancer.

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A recent Danish study suggests that women who have had an abortion are no more likely to develop depression than women who don’t. The data on 396,397 women born in Denmark between 1980 and 1994 includes 30,834 women who had an abortion and 85,592 who gave birth.

Women who had an abortion were more likely to take antidepressants, but these women were already showing increased use of antidepressants before their pregnancy. In other words, women who had an abortion are not significantly more likely to go on antidepressants, but in this group of women, those who are on antidepressants were more likely to get an abortion.

Women who had an abortion were 54 percent more likely to take antidepressants in the year after the procedure than women who didn’t have abortions but were tracked for the same one-year period, the study found. But their increased use of antidepressants was already evident in the year before the abortions, when these women were 46 percent more likely to take antidepressants than their counterparts who didn’t have abortions.” – Reuters

Past research has also been unable to show a correlation between abortions and mental health problems, but abortion opponents have still been using depression and other mental disorders as a reason to avoid abortions.

“Our study shows that there was an association between abortion and antidepressant use – but because the risk of antidepressant use was the same in the year before and after the abortion and goes down as more time from the abortion passes, it cannot be that abortion is causing depression or antidepressant use.” -Julia Steinberg, lead researcher

Steinberg also said that other factors like mental illness and being at a social disadvantage are associated with both having an abortion and with suffering from depression. Check out the Reuters article, Abortion not tied to increased risk of depression for more information.

Related: Sugar Leads to Depression – World’s First Trial Proves Gut and Brain are Linked (Protocol Included)

Another study found that those who are denied abortions are more likely to suffer from mental health issues. Check out the video for more on that:

Superior Court Judge Suzanne Bolanos said in a tentative ruling that she would likely overturn $250 million in punitive damages because there was no convincing evidence that Monsanto had knowingly manufactured a harmful product or acted “despicably” toward the plaintiff, Dewayne “Lee” Johnson.

Bayer AG, who recently acquired Monsanto, is challenging the verdict in August that awarded Dewayne Johnson $289 million. Superior Court Judge Suzanne Bolanos out of San Francisco indicated that she plans to hold back $250 million of the award. This ruling will be very good news to Bayer since the company is defending itself against thousands of U.S. lawsuits.

Related: Foods Most Likely to Contain Glyphosate

The judge said that even if she decides not to vacate the $250 million punishment damages she will likely still grant a new trial. She says the evidence against Bayer was insufficient. She also didn’t like Brent Wisner’s closing arguments from the trial. Brent told jurors that Monsanto executives were hanging out in a company boardroom, “waiting for the phone to ring” and that “behind them is a bunch of champagne on ice,” according to a court filing. The lawyer went on to say that “if the damages number isn’t significant enough, champagne corks will pop.”

Related: How to Avoid GMOs in 2018 – And Everything Else You Should Know About Genetic Engineering

Bayer agrees with the court’s tentative ruling. The jury’s verdict was wholly at odds with over 40 years of real-world use, an extensive body of scientific data and analysis, including in-depth reviews by regulatory authorities in the U.S. and EU, and approvals in 160 countries, which support the conclusion that glyphosate-based herbicides are safe when used as directed and that glyphosate is not carcinogenic.” – Bayer said in an emailed statement

The San Fransico Chronical reports that some of the jurors who awarded the $289 million verdicts are imploring the judge to reconsider her tentative decision to overturn most of the damages.

You may not have been convinced by the evidence but we were. I urge you to respect and honor our verdict and the six weeks of our lives that we dedicated to this trial.” – Juror Gary Kitahata said in a letter to Superior Court Judge Suzanne Bolanos

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Half of all active-duty male army soldiers are overweight, and one in five are obese. Obese soldiers cost the army much more in medical expenses, using nearly double the medical resources compared to those within a healthy weight. Obese soldiers were less likely to be seen medically for multiple trauma, but this may suggest that obese soldiers are not being deployed in combat as often, which is when such a medical emergency would be most likely.

An army doctor, Maj. Brian Shiozawa has been analyzing the height and weight data for 429,793 active male soldiers and cross-referencing those records with the soldiers’ medical visits and treatments. Shiozawa recently presented his research at the Obesity Medicine Association’s fall summit in Washington, D.C. He found that obese male soldiers sought medical treatment an average of 13 times a year in 2015 while normal-weight soldiers went an average of seven times a year.

“Are we employing them to go to the doctor, or are they fit to fight the nation’s wars? At what point do we say to service members, ‘You may be costing us more [than you provide to the military?]’ Maybe we need a BMI ceiling. We are spending three to four times as much to maintain you than what we get from you.” – Dr. Shiozawa

With the media frenzy of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, you wouldn’t be blamed for missing some pretty big news regarding the state of our environment. A 500-page environmental impact report states the planet will warm a disastrous seven degrees by the end of this century. The statement by for Trump Administration was issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. It was written to justify Trump’s decision to end current federal fuel-efficiency standards for cars and light trucks. The report says that man-made climate change is inevitable at this point, with temperatures set to rise by seven degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. The report states that the emissions policy would be inconsequential.

Click here to see the 500-page environmental impact statement.

In other words, they’ve been telling us that climate change is a hoax while they position themselves to profit from it, and now they say it’s inevitable so there’s no use trying to change things.

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Michael MacCracken served as a senior scientist for the U.S. Global Change Research Program from 1993 to 2002. Washington Post quotes him as saying,

The amazing thing they’re saying is human activities are going to lead to this rise of carbon dioxide that is disastrous for the environment and society. And then they’re saying they’re not going to do anything about it.”

A rise of seven degrees Fahrenheit will be ruinous for our way of life. Oceans will acidify, cities will be underwater, there will be mass extensions the likes of which we have never seen, and we will be dealing with record-breaking storms, droughts, and famines all over the world.

The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” – Donald Trump

Detroit recently made the decision to shut off public school’s drinking water because of “elevated levels” of lead and copper. In Baltimore City’s public schools, students haven’t been able to drink from water fountains for a decade. In May 2016, Portland found that 99 percent of the schools in the district had at least one cold water fixture with elevated levels of lead. For the first time in two years that students in most of Portland’s public school’s were able to safely drink from the water fountains when school started this year. Schools were recently tested in Indiana in a voluntary lead testing program. Out of 915, 61 percent were found to have elevated lead. High lead levels are still an issue in Hillsborough County, Florida and New York City schools.

Related: What’s the Best Water for Detoxifying and For Drinking?

Source:

• Not just Detroit: Lead in drinking water plagues schools nationwide – Detroit Free Press

In JulyMusk stated that he wanted to help with the water contamination problem in Flint, Michigan. A tweet by Flint Community Schools indicates Musk is following through.

You’re most welcome. Hope to do more to help in the future.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 5, 2018

A day after this tweet the district announced that they received a $480,350 donation to pay for ultraviolet filtration systems in all 12 of Flint’s school buildings.

Related: Microplastics In Tap Water and Beer Around the Great Lakes, and Everywhere Else

Musk has also asked Flint residents to email their lead test results so he can add some water filters to the homes that need them.

“We are deeply grateful for the generosity and the budding partnership between Flint Community Schools, the Musk Foundation and Elon Musk. The new water filtration systems will be instrumental in helping our students return to the normalcy of what should be a fundamental right: having access to safe, clean water from water fountains in their school.” – Derrick Lopez, Flint Community Schools Superintendent

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoTTM2mejuU