It seems Monsanto sold to Bayer just in time. Monsanto was sued by Dewayne Johnson on the grounds that the weedkiller Roundup caused his cancer, and now Bayer is dealing with the fallout from the $289 million dollar verdict that has since been reduced to $78 million. Bayer says that pending lawsuits from 9,300 plaintiffs are also alleging that glyphosate causes cancer. The company reported this in late October.

Experts have stated that these lawsuits (with more to come) could end up costing Bayer billions of dollars. Bayer stated that hundreds of scientific studies show glyphosate is safe to use.

We continue to believe that we have meritorious defenses and intend to defend ourselves vigorously in all of these lawsuits.” – Bayer’s chief executive Werner Baumann

In a telephone conference, Baumann has also been quoted as saying,

Glyphosate is an indispensable chemical for modern agriculture that is safe to use, very effective and saves resources. When used appropriately, glyphosate is a completely safe and good product. Completely safe.”

Glyphosate is Roundup’s active ingredient and it’s the most popular weed killer in the United States. The EPA maintains that glyphosate is not likely to be carcinogenic to people. But the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer said in 2015 that glyphosate was “probably carcinogenic.” And the EPA had labeled glyphosate as a carcinogen in 1985, but the FDA reversed their position in 1991.

Related: GMO Potatoes Are Here – How To Avoid Them

California has glyphosate listed as a chemical known to cause cancer under Prop 65.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who was involved in the glyphosate lawsuit (the Miller Firm says he was at the trial but not on the trial counsel team), is well known for raising awareness regarding vaccine damage (he is often cited as an anti-vaxxer but he is not). Kennedy Jr. now claims to have obtained incriminating documents regarding Monsanto’s business practices in Europe.

What we have is the tip of the iceberg. And in fact we have documents now in our possession, several hundreds of documents, that have not been declassified and some of those are explosive.” – EuroNews

It’s being reported that the European Union is likely to withdraw the license for Roundup before the year is over.

In addition to the glyphosate lawsuits, Monsanto’s dicamba herbicide is causing trouble across farm country:

It’s happening again. In states from Mississippi to Indiana, some US soybean farmers are seeing a troubling sight: Previously healthy plants begin to look wan, their leaves puckering into a cup-like shape. Similar symptoms are hitting trees, ornamental and garden plants, flowers, berries, and vegetables.” –Mother Jones

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

Additional Sources:

• Monsanto owner Bayer hit by new wave of lawsuits over Roundup weed killer – RT
• U.S. EPA says glyphosate not likely to be carcinogenic to people – Reuters
  

Imagine you have a pain in your chest and fear it might be a heart attack. When you get to the emergency room they run their incredibly expensive tests and then, to your great relief, they tell you that your heart is just fine. It was just indigestion. If you need another reason to stay as healthy as possible, now insurance companies may not pay for your emergency room visit. Some insurance companies are telling you that you need to properly diagnose yourself before heading to the emergency room.

With the price of emergency care skyrocketing, a new report says that some insurance companies won’t pay the claim if it is deemed that the patient did not have an emergency after all.

The new analysis shows that the criteria used by one large insurer, if expanded nationally, could result in denial of payment for nearly 16 percent of ER visits, even though these patients may have the same symptoms when they get to the ER as actual emergency cases, researchers report in JAMA Network Open.” – Reuters

Anthem Inc. insures one in eight people in the U.S. They started a policy of denying coverage for ER visits the company decides are unnecessary. The policy started in three states in 2017 and has expanded to a total of six states in 2018.

A certain proportion of emergency room visits are unnecessary and there are people who use the emergency room as if it were their primary care or only doctor. And there is a certain amount of resentment as this creates crowding in the emergency room and slows things down for people who have true emergencies. But this situation reflects a constellation of underlying problems for which neither the patients nor the emergency rooms are to blame.” – Albert Wu of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore (Reuters)

It’s increasingly important to keep yourself healthy. We recommend starting with the following:

• How To Heal Your Gut
• Detox Cheap and Easy Without Fasting – Recipes Included
• Stop Eating Like That and Start Eating Like This – Your Guide to Homeostasis Through Diet

Researchers from the University of Toronto analyzed over 12,000 men with early-stage prostate cancer and found that men who have received invasive or damaging treatments like surgery or radiation are more likely to use antidepressants. 4,952 men who had surgery, 4,994 got radiation and 2,136 men chose to wait and watch their diagnosis. When researchers contrasted each treatment method to a control group, those who were subject to radiation were 33 percent more likely to be on anti-depressants 5 years later. Those who underwent surgery were 49 percent more likely to take anti-depressants. Those who did nothing showed no significant change in anti-depressant use. Dr. Robert Nam is the senior author of the study.

Once they receive treatment for prostate cancer, whether that is surgery or radiation, they may experience treatment-related side effects, such as erectile dysfunction, incontinence, and bowel dysfunction, which can significantly worsen quality of life…”

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

The System

The United States is currently engaged in a discussion of what health care should be in this country. Articles and analysis frequently mention how much the U.S. spends in relation to how poor health outcomes are in comparison to other developed nations. More Americans are waking up to the idea that more treatment is not better treatment. Intervention begets more intervention. In this study, those who followed surgery or radiation treatment recommendations were more likely to receive anti-depressant scripts.

Even worse, some of the prostate cancer cases treated with surgery or radiation didn’t need any intervention. One of the ways doctors monitor and diagnose prostate cancer is by measuring levels of prostate-specific antigen (PSA). An increase in those levels in a patient with prostate cancer alerts caregivers to disease progression, but studies have found that PSA levels in healthy men aren’t a reliable indicator of prostate cancer. According to the National Cancer Institute,

Most men with an elevated PSA level turn out not to have prostate cancer; only about 25% of men who have a prostate biopsy due to an elevated PSA level actually are found to have prostate cancer when a biopsy is done.”

Prostate Cancer on the Rise

The “wait and see” method of dealing with prostate cancer is only practiced when the cancer is in its earliest stages. For those hoping to avoid radiation or surgery, that could be bad. Prostate cancer is on the rise among younger men and many cases are aggressive. Which means more intervention. How much is too much?

Sources:

• Prostate cancer surgery and radiation tied to antidepressant use – Reuters
• Variation and Trends in Antidepressant Prescribing for Men Undergoing Treatment for Nonmetastatic Prostate Cancer: A Population-based Cohort Study – European Urology
• Is Prostate Cancer on the Rise? – Men’s Journal
• Overdiagnosis: when finding cancer can do more harm than good – Cancer Research U.K.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved a new opioid medication that’s up to 10 times more powerful than fentanyl. Critics say the drug will contribute to the opioid crisis.

There are very tight restrictions being placed on the distribution and use of this product. We’ve learned much from the harmful impact that other oral opioid products can have in the context of the opioid crisis. We’ve applied those hard lessons as part of the steps we’re taking to address safety concerns for Dsuvia.” – FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb

Opioid addiction is often considered to be the biggest crisis in the U.S. More people die from opioid overdoses than breast cancer.

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The company says that DSUVIA will not be sold in retail pharmacies or available for outpatient use. The FDA says that it cannot be used for more than 72 hours at a time. This same drug with the chemical name sufentanil is already available as IV medication and is administered to patients with acute pain who cannot swallow a pill, but this new drug can be used for people who cannot swallow or take an IV. The company

Projected annual sales for the drug are said to be at 1.1 billion dollars. DSUVIA is expected to be available in the first quarter of next year.

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They might have used different methodology and measurements, but two recent studies have come to the same conclusion – male fertility is on the decline. Both studies were premiered at the Scientific Congress of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) in Denver.

The first study is a collaborative effort between private fertility centers in New Jersey and Spain. This study looked at 120,000 men struggling with infertility and found that the percentage of men with a total motile sperm count (TMSC) of more than 15 million declined from 85 percent in 2002-05 to 79 percent in 2014-17. A TMSC under 15 million is considered low, and this study also found that the number of men with an extremely low TMSC (0 to 5 million) increased from 9 to more than 11.5 percent.

The second study comes from researchers at Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine in conjunction with the California Cryobank and Reproductive Medicine Associates of New York. They looked at 124,000 sperm samples from 2,600 donors between 19-38 from various locations, including Los Angeles, Palo Alto, Houston, Boston, Indianapolis, and New York City. Testing sperm count, sperm concentration, and TMSC, researchers discovered that these numbers declined in almost every location from 2007 to 2017 (New York City was an exception for all three factors, while sperm counts in Boston showed no change).

Recommended: How To Heal Your Gut 

This is not news. Scientists from Hebrew University in Jerusalem found last year that sperm counts in the west have more than halved over the last forty years. The average rate of yearly decline is 1.4 percent. At this point, the real news would be the discovery of why. Why are men in the developed world experiencing this loss of fertility? Science still don’t know.

What We Need to Know

There are some theories as to how sperm counts and male fertility are declining in the western world. Some say the lack of exercise and increasing obesity play a part in decreased sperm numbers. Others point to the standard American diet, laced with sugar, soy, and other health-disrupting substances. Chemicals found in everyday items like Bis-Phenol A (BPA) are another common reason floated for the decline of male fertility. Add in smoking, stress, and drinking, and the causes of male infertility look like the textbook definition of an unhealthy lifestyle. Scientists haven’t found the official link between infertility and this kind of lifestyle. This suggests there isn’t one cause for the decline, though.  All of these options are valid and correct. Together they form the conditions needed to effectively slow men’s fertility in its tracks.

Related: How to Detox From Plastics and Other Endocrine Disruptors

Is This A Bad Thing?

As an environmentalist, I would love this news if the decrease in fertility wasn’t caused by environmental toxicity. Fewer people means less strain on resources, and 2017 study found that potential parents lower carbon emissions equivalent to 58.6 tonnes of CO2 emissions every year by having one fewer child. But lower sperm counts and decreased male fertility negatively affect the lives of the men dealing with them. Individuals struggling with infertility are more likely to develop diabetes, substance abuse disorders, or heart conditions. In a way that strains resources as well, especially in the U.S., where health care costs are a heavy burden on the population. Maybe we should treat infertility as a lifestyle problem, rather than a medical one. Let’s see that study.

Sources:

• Sperm Counts Continue to Fall – The Atlantic
• Study Finds Declining Sperm Counts in Houston and Other Cities – Houston Public Media
• Sperm counts of Western men plummeting, analysis finds – CNN
• The infertility crisis is beyond doubt. Now scientists must find the cause – The Guardian

Dewayne “Lee” Johnson, the groundskeeper who was awarded $289 million in a civil suit against Bayer’s Monsanto, has agreed to accept the reduced award of $78 million. Dewayne went to trial on the grounds that the weedkiller Roundup caused his cancer. The jury awarded him $39 million in compensatory damages and $250 million in punitive damages. Superior Court Judge Suzanne Bolanos cut the award by $211 million, stating that punitive damages at more than seven times the size of the compensatory award are not legally justified.

In enforcing due process limits, the Court does not sit as a replacement for a jury but only as a check on arbitrary awards.”

Johnson could have demanded a new trial, but instead, he accepted the reduced award of $78 million. Doctors report he has very little time left to live. Johnson accepted the lower amount in a desire to reach “a final resolution within his lifetime,” spokeswoman Robin McCall told The Associated Press.

Related: Foods Most Likely to Contain Glyphosate

Dewayne “Lee” Johnson, was 42, working as a groundskeeper and pest-control manager in Northern California, when he developed a rash that led to a diagnosis of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in August 2014. Court records say duties at work included mixing and spraying hundreds of gallons of Roundup, Monsanto’s glyphosate-based weedkiller.

His attorney disagreed with the judge’s settlement reduction, but Johnson will accept the lower amount in hopes of achieving “a final resolution within his lifetime,” spokeswoman Robin McCall told The Associated Press.

Related: Gluten Intolerance, Wheat Allergies, and Celiac Disease – It’s More Complicated Than You Think

Bayer acquired Monsanto in June. In an emailed statement Bayer spokesperson Charla Lord told NPR:

The Court’s decision to reduce the punitive damage award by more than $200 million is a step in the right direction, but we continue to believe that the liability verdict and damage awards are not supported by the evidence at trial or the law and plan to file an appeal with the California Court of Appeal.

There is an extensive body of research on glyphosate and glyphosate-based herbicides, including more than 800 rigorous registration studies required by EPA, European and other regulators, that confirms that these products are safe when used as directed.”

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

Glyphosate is one of the most widely used and well-known herbicides in the U.S. Reuters reports that Bayer faces about 8,000 more lawsuits on the herbicide.

Meat consumption is not the problem. It’s how we farm the animals. A Regenerative Secret is a short documentary video that that shows the benefits of regenerative agriculture and exposes how concentrated animal feeding operations are detrimental to our ecosystem. The video is sponsored by Joyce Farms, produced by Finian Makepeace of Kiss the Ground and featuring Dr. Allen Williams, Ph.D, Joyce Farms’ Chief Ranching Officer and a leading expert in soil health and regenerative agriculture.

We need grazing animals. Proper, truly sustainable animal farming methods are what we need to regenerate our soil, and I don’t see this happening if everyone became vegans. The soil needs their dung. Regenerative farming practices can completely restore soil health, and at a rate most do not even know is possible.

If we continue using industrial and even sustainable organic farming methods, we are threatening both the long-term availability of the land to farm as well as our overall health. Regenerative agriculture practices can quite literally regenerate the land by rebuilding the soil, leaving it far better than our generations found it.” – Joyce Farms

Of course, we should radically reduce our meat consumption, which we would have to do if we stopped factory farming. But this is exactly what we need to do to be able to feed the estimated 12 billion people that will inhabit the earth before human population numbers stabilize. We need a lot more soil to grow produce and grains, and that soil needs to be very healthy.

Also, check out this video below for a more indepth explanation. “Desertification is a fancy word for land that is turning to desert,” begins Allan Savory. He reports that “desertification is happening to about two-thirds of the world’s grasslands, accelerating climate change and causing traditional grazing societies to descend into social chaos. Savory has devoted his life to stopping it.”

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