The French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety has taken away the marketing licenses for 36 glyphosate-based products. The products will no longer be available for purchase in France, which accounts for almost three-quarters of glyphosate products sold in France. Several Roundup products are included on the list, another blow to pharmaceutical giant Bayer. France is not the only country to ban glyphosate-based products recently, as there is increasing scrutiny on the herbicide worldwide.

Bayer Problems

Since Bayer acquired Monsanto in June 2018, public questioning of glyphosate has drastically increased. The company has been on the losing side of three major decisions in the U.S., with the initial payout amounts totaling more than 2 billion USD (the awards would later be reduced by judges).

Increasing Bans

France is the European Union’s largest producer of cereals, poultry, beef, and wine. Losing a large portion of business from French farmers is not ideal for Bayer, but bans or restrictions on glyphosate are becoming a more common occurrence. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), a group of nations in the Middle East consisting of Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has banned the chemical completely since last year. Austria is the first European country to approve a total ban of glyphosate while Germany has announced plans for total bans in the future. Several smaller municipalities around the world have enacted restrictions on public and non-commercial use of glyphosate.

The United States is not included in the number of countries planning to limit glyphosate usage. Quite the opposite, actually. When the government of Thailand announced plans to ban glyphosate on December 1st, U.S. officials warned that the regulations would interfere with grain trade, as U.S. crops are heavily sprayed with that herbicide. Once again, the U.S. government puts profit over citizen health, even over those in other nations.

Sources:

• France to ban dozens of glyphosate weedkillers amid health risk debate – Reuters
• France bans dozens of glyphosate weedkillers – France24
• Where is Glyphosate Banned? – Baum Hedlund Law
• Thailand wants to ban these three pesticides. The US government says no – The Guardian

The numbers are in! Lawsuits against the world’s most popular herbicide, Round-up, have increased dramatically from 18,400 cases in July to 42,000 cases in October.

German company Bayer AG purchased agricultural behemoth Monsanto in June of 2018, and since then the pharmaceutical company has suffered three significant losses in rulings against glyphosate. Due to these, Bayer has seen a significant rise in the number of claims filed against the herbicide. The company comments in a statement shared with Reuters…

With the substantial increase in plaintiff advertising this year, we expect to see a significant surge in the number of plaintiff filings over the third quarter.”

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In Order

The first verdict was bit of a shock.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer classified glyphosate, the active ingredient in Round-up, as “probably carcinogenic in humans” in March of 2015. The United States federal government, especially the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), doesn’t agree with that status. When the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment declared glyphosate as carcinogenic to humans, the EPA went as far as to issue a news release to notify companies that the agency would not approve product labels stating that glyphosate causes cancer. In light of that opposition, arguing to a jury that the herbicide causes cancer when the federal government disagrees would be a fool’s errand. Yet Dewayne Johnson received a verdict for $289 million dollars in San Francisco County superior court in August 2018 (that award would later be cut down to $78 million). Lawyers estimate that Bayer’s brand new acquisition is facing 4,000 similar cases.

Related: Foods Most Likely to Contain Glyphosate

Those numbers didn’t seem to bother the company. CEO Werner Baumann went on various news shows in February 2019 to discuss the company’s 2018 stats and reported positive results. During a CNBC interview, Baumann said the company was optimistic looking into 2019. According to the interviewer, Bayer was facing 11,000 lawsuits.

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2019/02/27/bayer-ceo-says-company-is-confident-about-growth-in-2019.html

It seems Baumann’s optimism was misplaced, as Bayer lost another California lawsuit during March of 2019. The plaintiff was awarded $80 million (that amount would later be reduced by the presiding judge to $26 million). This decision had clear consequences. Retail giant Costco stopped selling Round-up, and Bayer stock prices dropped almost $4,000 in less than two weeks.

May 2019 brought another verdict against the company. The amount of money awarded to the two plaintiffs increased significantly, with the jury awarding each person $1 billion in damages (that sum would later be reduced by a different judge to $86.7 million). Bayer’s second-quarter report in July 2019 stated that there were 18,400 lawsuits in regard to glyphosate and cancer.

Now we have over 42,000 people involved in lawsuits against Bayer and glyphosate. The number of glyphosate lawsuits has more than doubled in the past four months. The judge presiding over the second verdict against Bayer, Vince Chhabria has mandated confidential mediation aimed at settling the 900 cases he currently oversees, but it is unlikely that will be enough to slow down the number of lawsuits accumulating.

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Decisions

This doesn’t seem like a big deal. There have only been three verdicts against the company. While juries awarded the plaintiffs substantial amounts, all three judgments have been later reduced. Bayer seems to have accepted this as the cost of doing business.

The increase in lawsuits against glyphosate is a positive thing. It’s a necessary thing. But it isn’t nearly enough. Roundup has been on the market since 1974. The amount of plaintiffs seems small when you consider the damage that had been done by forty-five years of using this product. Even more importantly, Bayer won’t care until they see this affect their bottom line – their stock prices. It remains to be seen if that will entice them to do the right thing for the environment and human health.

Sources:

• Roundup weedkiller: 42,000 plaintiffs sue Bayer over glyphosate – Deutsche Welle
• Number of Bayer Lawsuits May Increase to 45,000 – Mercola
• Bayer expects significant surge in number of U.S. glyphosate cases – Reuters
• EPA Takes Action to Provide Accurate Risk Information to Consumers, Stop False Labeling on Products – EPA.gov
• U.S. judge appoints Ken Feinberg mediator for Bayer Roundup settlement talks – Reuters

Glyphosate was added to California’s Proposition 65 list of carcinogens in July 2017. Products containing Glyphosate, like Monsanto’s RoundUp, were supposed to have warning labels on the packaging that stated potential cancer risks. The glyphosate cancer warnings were scheduled to be on the packaging of glyphosate products in summer of 2018 But in 2018 Monsanto challenged the law and a federal judge temporarily banned California’s plans to add cancer warning labels on glyphosate-based products. And now the EPA has stated they will “no longer approve product labels claiming glyphosate is known to cause cancer.”

Related: Foods Most Likely to Contain Glyphosate

The EPA will not allow labels that indicate a link between glyphosate and cancer. Registrants selling products that contain glyphosate have 90 days from August 7th to show compliance removing the warning.

The State of California’s much criticized Proposition 65 has led to misleading labeling requirements for products, like glyphosate, because it misinforms the public about the risks they are facing.”

EPA Statement

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This means that while Costco bans glyphosate and Bayer/Monsanto is facing more than 10,000 lawsuits and losing millions of dollars in those lawsuits (maybe billions soon) for the damage glyphosate can do to one’s health, it won’t have a warning label, but coffee and supplements sold in California will have cancer warnings labels.

It shouldn’t be a surprise but, of course, it still needs to be reported. The kid’s cereals and other packaged marketed to children still contain alarming amounts of glyphosate, the cancer-causing ingredient in Roundup, the herbicide produced by Bayer-Monsanto. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) detected the carcinogen in all 21 oat-based cereal and snack products sampled in their latest testing.

Nearly two dozen popular children’s cereals and other snack products tested and show to contain glyphosate.

Organic oats were not exempt from glyphosate contamination either.

EWG noted that only four products “contained levels of glyphosate higher than what EWG scientists consider protective for children’s health with a sufficient margin of safety.”

The new tests were performed by independent laboratories and they confirm the findings from EWG’s testing in July and October of last year. Honey Nut Cheerios and Medley Crunch showed the two highest levels of glyphosate at between 729 and 833 parts per billion. The EWG “children’s health benchmark” is 160 ppb.

EWG-commissioned independent laboratory tests of oat-based products found glyphosate present in 95 percent of samples made with conventionally grown oats and 31 percent of samples made with organic oats. Conventional products had much higher glyphosate levels than their organic counterparts.

It is common practice for conventional oats to be sprayed with glyphosate prior to harvest, as a desiccant that kills all crops uniformly. Organic oats are not treated that way, but may become contaminated by glyphosate drifting from nearby conventional crops.

How Does EWG Set a ‘Health Benchmark’ for Glyphosate Exposure?

Related: Foods Most Likely to Contain Glyphosate

Products testing positive include:

• Honey Nut Cheerios (147 ppb)
• Cheerios Toasted Whole Grain Oat Cereal (729 ppb)
• Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheerios (400ppb)
• Cheerios Oat Crunch Cinnamon (283 ppb)
• Honey Nut Cheerios Medley Crunch (833 ppb)
• Multi Grain Cheerios (216 ppb)
• Nature Valley Baked Oat Bites (389 ppb)
• Nature Valley Granola Peanut Butter Creamy & Crunchy (198 ppb)
• Nature Valley Granola Protein Oats n Dark Chocolate (261 ppb)
• Nature Valley Fruit & Nut Chewy Trail Mix Granola Bars, Dark Chocolate & Nut (76 ppb)
• Nature Valley Fruit & Nut Chewy Trail Mix Granola Bars – Dark Chocolate Cherry (275 ppb)
• Nature Valley Sweet & Salty Nut granola bars – Cashew (158 ppb)
• Nature Valley Crunchy granola bars – Oats and Honey (320 ppb)
• Nature Valley Crunchy granola bars – Peanut Butter (312 ppb)
• Nature Valley Crunchy granola bars – Maple Brown Sugar (566 ppb)
• Nature Valley Soft-Baked Oatmeal Squares – Blueberry (206
  ppb)
• Nature Valley Soft-Baked Oatmeal Squares – Cinnamon Brown Sugar (124 ppb)
• Nature Valley Granola Cups – Almond Butter (529 ppb)
• Nature Valley Granola Cups – Peanut Butter Chocolate (297 ppb)
• Nature Valley Biscuits with Almond Butter (194 ppb)
• Fiber One Oatmeal Raisin soft-baked cookies (204 ppb).

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EWG purchased products via online retail sites. Approximately 300 grams of each product were packed in our Washington, D.C., office and shipped to Anresco Laboratories in San Francisco. Glyphosate levels were analyzed by a liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry method described here.

In New Round of Tests, Monsanto’s Weedkiller Still Contaminates Foods Marketed to Children

The world is finally realizing the dangers of glyphosate in our food system. Costco is planning to ban glyphosate from their stores, and Bayer is facing a plethora of lawsuits for the cancer-causing herbicide.

The world is also beginning to understand the problems with our food system and we’re starting to seriously look for alternatives to factory farmed meat.

We love the idea of meat-alternatives in an effort to adopt a more ecologically friendly and human approach to feeding the population. We have to find alternatives to factory farming. And the meat-alternative that’s all the rage today is the Impossible Burger. Burger King is rolling out the Impossible Whopper nationwide this year. White Castle, Hard Rock Cafe, Red Robin, Cheesecake Factory, and hundreds of other restaurants already have the Impossible Burger on their menu.

Related: Foods Most Likely to Contain Glyphosate

Unfortunately, the Impossible burger is not a healthy or environmentally conscious alternative to beef. Mom’s Across America reports that the Health Research Institute Laboratories found levels of glyphosate in the Impossible burger to be alarmingly high.

The total result (glyphosate and its break down AMPA) was 11.3 ppb. Moms Across America also tested the Beyond Meat Burger and the results were 1 ppb. These are levels eleven times higher than levels within the Beyond Meat Burger.

We are shocked to find that the Impossible Burger can have up to 11X higher levels of glyphosate residues than the Beyond Meat Burger according to these samples tested. This new product is being marketed as a solution for “healthy” eating, when in fact 11 ppb of glyphosate herbicide consumption can be highly dangerous. Only 0.1 ppb of glyphosate has been shown to alter the gene function of over 4000 genes in the livers, kidneys and cause severe organ damage in rats.**** I am gravely concerned that consumers are being misled to believe the Impossible Burger is healthy.”

Zen Honeycutt, Executive Director of Moms Across America

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Soy and wheat crops that are often heavily sprayed with glyphosate. The CEO of Impossible Foods recently announced that the soy patties will be made using GMO soy. Previously the Impossible Burger was being made with a textured wheat protein, but in order to meet demand, they switched to a non-GM soy protein concentrate, and are now switching to genetically engineered soy. The CEO & Founder of Impossible Foods, Pat Brown, said that GM soy is “the safest and most environmentally responsible option that would allow us to scale our production and meet demand.”

One the switch is made to GM soy the glyphosate levels in the Impossible Burger are likely to rise. Genetically-modified soy is a “Roundup Ready” product.

Common Drea,s broke down the CEOs clams in an excellent article titled, 6 Reasons Impossible Burger’s CEO Is Wrong About GMO Soy.

As most already know, in what may go down as the worst acquisition in the history of business, Bayer bought Monsanto last year for $63 billion. While Monsanto has become Bayer’s biggest mistake, you’ve got to hand it to Monsanto for knowing when to sell. Since the buyout, Bayer has been embroiled in litigation, with plaintiffs winning lawsuits showing that glyphosate likely caused their cancer.

Mom’s Across America reported that on January 18:

Elizabeth Desiree of Washington state posted on Facebook that she just got a call from an employee at Costco and he told her that Costco would no longer be selling Roundup. She had written him a letter and he was calling her back. I was excited but reserved my excitement. There is so much fake news these days. I called the headquarters, and after two days of messages and calls, I did finally confirm with three people that Costco was not ordering Roundup or any glyphosate-based herbicides for the incoming spring shipments. They would not be selling it in any stores, all across America. This is HUGE! How fantastic! One employee mentioned that they had looked into organic alternatives first and were happy with the results. More than one employee mentioned the lawsuit (Johnson V Monsanto) for part of the reasoning. They said they just felt like it was the right thing to do.

Mom’s Across America

Related: Foods Most Likely to Contain Glyphosate

Costco has not released a statement. But the company has been a progressive leader in many respects. They have been known for taking better care of their employees and their environmental initiatives. In 2014 Huffington Post article, Costco was ranked second to Google on employee satisfaction. And they are one of the largest sellers in the country of organic foods, and they support farmers that are transitioning to organic growing practices.

Considering the amount of food Costco sells, this should amount to a considerable loss in revenue for the makers of RoundUp, not to mention other stores that will likely follow suit.

Two weeks ago a California jury awards two plaintiffs $2.055 billion dollars in damages. The jury awarded $2 billion in punitive damages and $55 million in compensatory damages. This is Bayer’s third loss in court from lawsuits over glyphosate. The first judgment was reported in August of 2018, where judges awarded $289 million in damages (later reduced to $78 million). The second happened in March of this year, where a San Francisco jury found in favor of plaintiff Edwin Hardeman to the tune of $80 million in damages.

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The damages award will probably be reduced thanks to U.S. Supreme Court rulings that limit the punitive to compensatory damages ratio at 9:1.

Bayer is now looking forward to more than 13,400 pending U.S. lawsuits seeking damages from glyphosate use, and that number is likely to keep rising for some time.

The hits keep coming for pharmaceutical giant Bayer and their popular herbicide Roundup as a California jury awards two plaintiffs $2.055 billion dollars in damages. The verdict came in the case of Alva and Alberta Pilliod of Livermore, Calif., who say that three decades of exposure to Roundup and its active ingredient, glyphosate, are the cause of their non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Each plaintiff received $1 billion in punitive damages and an additional 55 million in collective compensatory damages. Bayer refuted the jury’s findings in a statement released on Monday,

Bayer is disappointed with the jury’s decision and will appeal the verdict in this case, which conflicts directly with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s interim registration review decision released just last month, the consensus among leading health regulators worldwide that glyphosate-based products can be used safely and that glyphosate is not carcinogenic, and the 40 years of extensive scientific research on which their favorable conclusions are based.”

Related: Foods Most Likely to Contain Glyphosate

Not the Only One

This is not the first successful verdict against Roundup within the last year, all of them occurring in California. The first judgment was reported in August of 2018, where judges awarded $289 million in damages (later reduced to $78 million). The second happened in March of this year, where a San Francisco jury found in favor of plaintiff Edwin Hardeman to the tune of $80 million in damages.

California Dreaming

In every statement following the verdicts against them, Bayer has cited the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) classification of glyphosate as non-carcinogenic. Until recently, that was powerful evidence for the pharmaceutical corporation. In 2015, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) International Agency for Research on Cancer listed glyphosate as cancer-causing. There were strenuous objections from then Monsanto and the EPA, but emails released in an early 2017 lawsuit suggested that prominent employees at the government agency had suppressed research unfavorable to glyphosate. The State of California recognized glyphosate as carcinogenic in July 2017. Since then, lawsuits against the herbicide have gained increasingly more traction.

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Money on the Mind

Three juries have found in favor of plaintiffs vs. Bayer, and there are anywhere from 4,000 to 11,000 lawsuits pending. It remains to be seen if spending large quantities of money on court cases will be enough for Bayer to pivot to a different product or begin to take responsibility for their product. Monsanto made $1.9 billion in gross revenue from herbicide products in 2015. The current bill for Roundup cases is $2.213 billion dollars. Is it enough?

Sources:

• California Jury Awards $2 Billion To Couple In Roundup Weed Killer Cancer Trial – NPR
• Jury returns $2 billion verdict against Monsanto for couple with cancer — the biggest so far – CNN
• Bayer statement on jury’s decision in California State Glyphosate Trial – Bayer
• EPA Says Roundup Is Safe While Bayer Is Losing Millions In Lawsuits – Organic Lifestyle Magazine