Cancer patients are celebrating a string of courtroom victories after juries in three US states recently ordered Germany’s Bayer to pay more than $500m in damages for failing to warn about the health risks of its Roundup herbicides. But the consumer wins come as proposed federal legislation backed by Bayer and the powerful agricultural industry could limit similar cases from ever going to trial in the future.

  •  memfree   ( @memfree@beehaw.org ) 
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    1711 months ago

    This is important! This is the sort of thing voters need to be calling about to their Congress folks. This is where we need media attention – especially the mostly defunct local news that SHOULD be telling us which way our elected officials are positioning themselves for upcoming issues, and then checking to see if they voted as they said they would.

    This is the sort of thing where Congress KNOWS it is unlikely that anyone will know how the votes go down, and they’ll get ‘campaign’ money from mega-corps for screwing over the voting public. Don’t let them get away with it!

    Call your Representative NOW and tell them you are watching. Better: tell them you are part of a group (whatever group you might be in) and you are educating the whole group to vote on this issue. Tell them you are watching to see when they vote for and against public interest. Then DO SO.

  • “Farmers and consumers need to not only be able to trust the regulation of the products they use but trust that the government has made decisions based on agreed-upon and established science, facts and data.”

    Yeah that’s the thing. We DON’T trust any of you fucks.

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    Cancer patients are celebrating a string of courtroom victories after juries in three US states recently ordered Germany’s Bayer to pay more than $500m in damages for failing to warn about the health risks of its Roundup herbicides.

    In response, on 27 October, more than 150 US lawmakers signed a letter to the leadership of the House committee on agriculture expressing “strong opposition” to the pre-emption measures, saying they would overturn “decades of precedent” and have a “significant impact” on public safety.

    The industry efforts in Washington come as scores of cities and towns around the US have moved in recent years to limit or ban certain pesticides on public grounds due to evidence of health and environmental risks.

    “Pre-emption is a threat to democracy and public health,” said Kim Konte, who leads Non-Toxic Neighborhoods, a grassroots organization that works with communities across the country to adopt pesticide-free practices.

    The company has already agreed to pay out billions of dollars in settlements to tens of thousands of people suffering from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) they blame on exposure to Roundup and other Monsanto glyphosate-based herbicide brands.

    Amid the legislative wrangling, cancer patient and Roundup plaintiff Larry Gainey said he did not want to see any pre-emption bill passed, and hoped for his own day in court.


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