GMO SCRAPBOOK: MON(STER)SANTO TO PAY 289.2 MILLION IN LAWSUIT

Most regular readers here know I have my concerns about GMOs, and particularly about the most notorious player in that game, I.G. Farbensanto. Indeed, when former I.G. Farben component Bayer bought controlling interest in Mon(ster)santo recently, I thought that we might have the makings of some classic karma coming home to roost, since Bayer was a large component of the notorious I.G. Farben chemicals cartel.

Recently a lawsuit was concluded in California, and Mon(ster)santo was ordered to pay $289,200,000 in a lawsuit brought against it for its glyphosate-ridden herbicide, Round-up, which is a product to be used in conjunction with its herbicide resistance GMO crops (thanks to Mr. G.B. and Mr. G.F. for sharing these articles):

Monsanto to Pay $289.2M in Landmark Roundup Lawsuit Verdict

Monsanto Slammed With $289 Million Verdict In Historic 'RoundUp' Cancer Lawsuit

The results of this trial should confirm the warnings that various people have been trying to send for years concerning not only Mon(ster)santo's product, but more importantly, its behavior:

After eight weeks of trial proceedings, the jury found unanimously that Monsanto’s glyphosate-based Roundup weed killer caused Mr. Johnson to develop NHL, and that Monsanto failed to warn of this severe health hazard. Importantly, the jury also found that Monsanto acted with malice, oppression or fraud and should be punished for its conduct.

Monsanto Co. continues to refuse to warn consumers of the dangers of its multi-billion-dollar product Roundup despite the world’s foremost authority on cancer—the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)—listing glyphosate as a probable carcinogen in 2015.

Lee Johnson is one of more than 4,000 people from across the country to file suit against Monsanto in state and federal courts based on allegations linking Roundup to cancer.

He was represented at trial by Brent Wisner of Baum, Hedlund, Aristei and GoldmanDavid Dickens of the Miller Firm and Mark Burton of Audet & Partners LLP.

Co-lead trial counsel Brent Wisner said today’s verdict was a result of newly-revealed, confidential company documents.

"We were finally able to show the jury the secret, internal Monsanto documents proving that Monsanto has known for decades that glyphosate and specifically Roundup could cause cancer," Wisner said. "Despite the Environmental Protection Agency’s failure to require labeling, we are proud that an independent jury followed the evidence and used its voice to send a message to Monsanto that its years of deception regarding Roundup is over and that they should put consumer safety first over profits."

For years Monsanto has claimed that there is no evidence that Roundup causes cancer, yet a mountain of testimony and documents was admitted during the trial. Johnson’s attorneys proved through testimony from Monsanto’s witnesses that company employees “ghostwrote” scientific articles and paid outside scientists to publish the articles in their name.

Internal documents revealed that a scientific advisor hired by Monsanto told the company that past testing for Roundup was insufficient because glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, was tested in isolation without the other chemical ingredients that make up the Roundup formulation.

"Many of these confidential Monsanto documents were unsealed for the first time,” co-lead counsel David Dickens said. “They show that Monsanto knew that its testing was insufficient and that there was a synergistic effect when glyphosate is combined with surfactants which help the glyphosate penetrate both plant and animal cell walls.”

Mon(ster)santo, as regular readers here know, was recently bought out by the giant German chemicals combine, Bayer (a former component of I.G. Farben, along with B.A.S.F. and other companies), and the decision sent Bayer's stocks tumbling. But there's more, for according to the second article linked above, from Zero Hedge the internal pressures to "fudge the data". But more importantly, there's other cases lurking in the wings:

As the New York Times noted last year, new internal emails, among other things, reveal ethical objections from former employees to "ghost writing" research studies that were pawned off as 'independent' analyses.

The documents underscore the lengths to which the agrochemical company goes to protect its image. Documents show that Henry I. Miller, an academic and a vocal proponent of genetically modified crops, asked Monsanto to draft an article for him that largely mirrored one that appeared under his name on Forbes’s website in 2015. Mr. Miller could not be reached for comment.

A similar issue appeared in academic research. An academic involved in writing research funded by Monsanto, John Acquavella, a former Monsanto employee, appeared to express discomfort with the process, writing in a 2015 email to a Monsanto executive, “I can’t be part of deceptive authorship on a presentation or publication.” He also said of the way the company was trying to present the authorship: “We call that ghost writing and it is unethical.”

The newly disclosed emails also reveal internal discussions which cast some doubt over whether internal scientists actually believed in the company's external messaging that Roundup was, in fact, safe.

“If somebody came to me and said they wanted to test Roundup I know how I would react — with serious concern."

And, here's more:

The documents also show that a debate outside Monsanto about the relative safety of glyphosate and Roundup, which contains other chemicals, was also taking place within the company.

In a 2002 email, a Monsanto executive said, “What I’ve been hearing from you is that this continues to be the case with these studies — Glyphosate is O.K. but the formulated product (and thus the surfactant) does the damage.”

In a 2003 email, a different Monsanto executive tells others, “You cannot say that Roundup is not a carcinogen … we have not done the necessary testing on the formulation to make that statement.”

Sometimes the wheels of justice turn slowly - too slowly - but in this case, I hope they continue to turn, and grind, for both Mon(ster)santo and Bayer have their murky histories (and that's putting it very kindly), and neither has ever really faced justice. The GMO industry has had a sad practice of suing farmers whose fields have contained GMO crops for non-payment of licensing fees, even if those crops were accidentally seeded into their fields by bird droppings and so on. (What exactly is that law? Practicing agriculture without a license? And by the way, how does one determine if a farmer's fields contained corporate seeds, without sending out spies, and tramping through someone's private property?) The damning thing here is the 2003 email of a Mon(ster)santo executive cited in the Zero Hedge quotation admitting that as of 2003, no carcinogenic testing had been done by the company. It's time for some counter-suits by farmers who did not want their fields contaminated by GMOs...

... and as for this decision, I suspect it will be the first of many more, both in the USA and in Europe. I suspect I'm not alone when I say that I hope Mon(ster)santo and Bayer choke on a flood of lawsuits, because no amount of money can bring Mr. Johnson's life back, nor bring back the lives of many others ruined by corporate greed and "science" (Zyklon B, anyone?).

If Mon(ster)santo becomes a millstone around Bayer's neck, a corporate White Elephant it could not sell at a rummage sale, I for one won't shed any tears for either company, because I strongly suspect Mr. Johnson's sad case is not the only one. Mon(ster)santo and Bayer were made for each other...

See you on the flip side...

 

 

Posted in

Joseph P. Farrell

Joseph P. Farrell has a doctorate in patristics from the University of Oxford, and pursues research in physics, alternative history and science, and "strange stuff". His book The Giza DeathStar, for which the Giza Community is named, was published in the spring of 2002, and was his first venture into "alternative history and science".

17 Comments

  1. Pierre on August 15, 2018 at 11:46 pm

    I spy tribe members and crypto peer names in his legal team. were the legal fees $290 million?
    Now I can see in the near future I G Farben Labor Camps Cool Hand Luke Style weeding the roadsides in an environmentally friendy way, like the dole bludgers in australia who have to do 25 hours a week for $40 a day to live on. Even Jon (Port Arthur) Howard thinks this is a bit rich even in convict land.
    no worries, this will all be soon replaced by transgender AI nano drone weed killers and goyim slayers. am I too cynical?
    surfacant? yes we can! (and trust British paints and Rolf’s buddies at the top of the weed garden who need Rounding Up). / end rant



  2. Good Prevails on August 15, 2018 at 9:05 am

    I am truly shocked that there even *was* a legal system verdict and settlement which clearly incriminates MonSatan’s profligate evil. Will they – and the academics, governments and military who created Lyme and Morgellons, Ecdysone, Agrobacterium, and all other pandemics be brought to task for the transhumanism and destroyed lives, the corruption of human DNA?
    Evil is not equivalent in nature to the explanation of the color black for artists: black is the absence of color, white is all colors of the spectrum (including those the human senses cannot detect). Evil is the left side of the duality existing with Good, and cannot change. (Why it exists at all still baffles me; still learning.) Will this verdict create change? I did see (as of yesterday, maybe more have now) that a European country (forget which) made sales of Round-Up illegal as a result of this ruling. But the overarching question remains: will there be change, here on this earth, in this time? Is it possible? The Kolbrin record (called a bible, but that part of the title seems a misnomer, and possibly what one thinks of as a bible needs redefinition) is explicit is pointing out that over these cycles of cosmic earth resets, mankind has not heeded the warnings, or changed. Clearly the reason corruption, deceit, greed, trauma cycles and death of mind, body and soul continues is this fact of universal law of darkness. Because we are in the Age of Aquarius, and the Most High is our waterbearer, water being life’s essence to continue, as we have this digital story-sharing conduit, we for the first time have a chance to leave this soul trap.
    When one looks back at the planning that went into the biggest coverup of all, religion, which completely divorces man (by man I mean both sexes, for there are only two genders) from Spirit/Light by its paradigm of guilt trip and fear, it is so completely all-encompassing that it makes Dungeons and Dragons look like the game of Go Fish. So *will* there be change for the better going forward? Will the use of RoundUp stop? How about all the other vectors of death so well elucidated in all the previous comments? Will they be stopped? As someone who considers herself an activist (59, stopped watching TV at 14, been awake forrrevvverrr, ugh), I regret deeply that I say have to say this, but I think “No, MonSatan (not *my* lord) and Co. will not be stopped. At least not by us, here. I don’t get many votes of popularity for this (almost none), but Yeshua is YHVH’s rescue mission to grab some peeps at an opportune electomagnetic moment of the earth’s vesica piscis. It looks like that moment might be coming soon.
    Does this mean we give up trying to be the change we want? Hell no! We are here to Love, to be LOVE because LOVE – another redefinition of word needed – is the photon force of SPIRIT and CREATION. We are It. Here in this cesspool. #sadfact
    All this middle east, Vietnam, Cambodia war, destroying India, Africa, Tibet: destroy the evidence. The farce of Antarctica we are presented with. Nagasaki was Japan’s Christian population capital. Heliocentric theory AKA globe: remove G_D.
    I have come to the conclusion all this MUST happen, this Doom with in this world incarnation the dumbs and fema camps and depops and all the alphabets – resilient my a%s! THEY know at some point their time will eternally end. That’s why they have no stops to pull at all. They have been *done* since they first fell here, where the UN has its fortified base. At some point these cycles will end, that’s as much as I understand. So my heart goes out to all of us <3



    • Joseph P. Farrell on August 16, 2018 at 2:06 am

      You have it exactly backwards with respect to colors: black absorbs all colors, and white reflects all colors.



  3. zendogbreath on August 14, 2018 at 11:24 pm

    first? sign of intelligence is pattern recognition?

    bhopal? exxon valdez? deepwater horizon? bayer hiv tainted blood sales? vioxx? asbestos johns mansville? thaladimide? agent orange (anyone notice glyphosate’s relationship to agent organge?)? talcum powder? parabens, dioxin, bpa, fukushima, chernobyl, 3 mile island,

    this list goes on forever. or at least so far seems to or will.

    add to it statins, viagra, vaccines, mercury amalgam fillings, prozac, 5g networks, hernia mesh implants, antibiotics, chemotherapy, radiation treatments, annual preventive mammograms,



    • Robert Barricklow on August 15, 2018 at 10:45 am

      Quite a list of assassins.
      Of course, I’m a little off target when I meme:
      Public, Enemy #1.
      More accurately:
      Life[Nature] is the enemy being exterminated.



  4. marcos toledo on August 14, 2018 at 7:17 pm

    It’s not privatization but piratization we a dealing with a bunch of criminals who think they can get away with mass murder. But where will they hide as destruction washes over this world have they no sense of self-preservation at least? Or has greed become their pan-ultimate drug of choice.



  5. Richard on August 14, 2018 at 4:52 pm

    . . . In some ways, it is reminiscent of the “Joker,” of Batman, where he concocts various products that when mixed together in differing amounts and of differing chemicals for purpose have different outcomes – such as the laughing lady news broadcaster that perishes on set after an extreme laughing fit. . . Other broadcasters were less affected medically, but had noticeable changes less humorous. . . Laboratories sent samples of water for analysis, for instance, are scrutinized more now for integrity than before and have their work cut out when catastrophic flooding occurs. . . It’s no wonder someone mentioned a potential up-tick in household water filtration units sold. . . In certain areas they’re needed. . .

    . . . The ingestion of small quantities of other lethal compounds, through a contaminated municipal water works, let’s say, are likely more subtle, insidious, and less easily traceable for blame and act over a longer period of time. . . The initial manufacturers of toxins, microbes, and body system agents might get the first fingers pointed their way yet are made the fall-guy by rogue agents acting nefariously toward self-serving goals. . . It would seem to get very grim if one were to assemble pathology reports for patterns. . .



  6. Levi G on August 14, 2018 at 4:48 pm

    The roundup used as a desiccant on nearly all US food crops is the reason for so many freak food allergies and gluten sensitivities. Talk about a canary in the coal mine…
    Can’t tell you how many clueless baby boomers-and-older I’ve seen in real life spraying their driveways and lawns that pets and children play in. Basically showering themselves in it and then wondering why they have aggressive cancers. All because they couldn’t hand weed tiny harmless plants. Oh and did I mention we eat it too in huge residual amounts?



  7. goshawks on August 14, 2018 at 2:54 pm

    All of this reminds me of the tobacco-related denials of harmfulness and subsequent release of piles of evidence of known harm. The crescendo of lawsuits against said firms peaked and seemed about to bankrupt them.

    Then, the Republicans won the Presidency. The paid-for machinery swung into place, and the lawsuits were suppressed or voided-out. Even the EPA was gutted, to cut-off the government backing. The tobacco industry was saved…

    So, while I applaud the Monsanto decision, I will wait and see whether the ‘backlash’ from the corporate government ultimately protects the perps…



    • Robert Barricklow on August 14, 2018 at 5:20 pm

      Yes Goshawks,
      Their modus operandi is to legalize the crime.
      Like insider trading, or the mortgage crime that was rewritten to change to dates of the laws so that it was no longer applicable.
      Accountable?
      No!
      On could argue however that it is representative law,
      in that it represents the government’s constituency:
      the Plutocrims.



  8. mpaff on August 14, 2018 at 2:05 pm

    a couple of liters of Roundup intravenous drip per offender would be appropriate…



  9. Robert Barricklow on August 14, 2018 at 11:14 am

    As the manipulation of governance and all vehicles of power become more important for corporate survival, the new phenomena that make corporations more a product of society, and more dependent on it, will make it more essential for corporate power to try to control society, its governance, and practically all avenues of power.
    Its innate drive for hegemony over society, and the erosion of public democracy is one of the most troubling aspects of this new virulent form of corporatism[technocapitalism?]. Thus the need to hold corporations accountable to society is literally tantamount to its survival. This verdict is an opening hymn; but the fat lady is yet to sing – in this, I’m afraid, tragedy as farce opera of private power vs public power.
    The very structures & mechanisms for democracy are being co-opted by new corporatism. The agenda of public insti tutions and governance itself becomes indistinguishable from those of corporate power. Corporate power effectively sets the agendas of public institutions – becoming appendages of corporatism.
    And how much of these millions will actually pan out when the ink runs dry? The inks flows boldly as the verdicts are read; but suddenly dry-up when they dwindle down in the Just Us process[Exxon, the McDonald’s hot coffee-spill old lady, etc. etc.].



    • Robert Barricklow on August 14, 2018 at 11:28 am

      The nature of this virulent corporatism does not respect ANY boundaries in its quest for power. Respecting boundaries and limitations tends to be subject to the calculus of power & profit rather than of ethics and/or morality. Having to deal w/uncertainty corporations choses to try and control the social environment at scales and depths unfathomed by corporate power in previous times. Corporatism’s attempt at social control often results in pathology-not only for corporate power itself but for society at large.
      Genetic engineering into the human realm?



  10. WalkingDead on August 14, 2018 at 9:54 am

    The cartel’s pockets are deep; the decision is under appeal; this fight isn’t over by a long shot; and it’s all going down in California, a morally bankrupt cesspool where everything is for sale. Like any well written screenplay, the main character, regardless of how good or evil, loses in the beginning before triumphing in the end.
    While I sincerely pray that this is the case that begins the avalanche of doom for this company and it’s leadership, we will, unfortunately, have to wait and see how it plays out in the end.
    The seemingly infinite array of outright evil currently being perpetrated on the human race by these global corporations, backed by their presstitutes in government and the MSM worldwide, all for the almighty dollar, needs to come to an end.



  11. Cynthia Cox on August 14, 2018 at 7:47 am

    Bravo to the California legal team and jury! Now perhaps Dr. Farrell, you may consider tweaking you’re nomenclature as it seems, those Californians are not so “nutty” after all.



  12. DanaThomas on August 14, 2018 at 7:19 am

    Even with the best corporate propaganda, you can’t deceive all the people all the time. And in case of legal problems, especially in the litigation-prone USA, you can’t pay off all the judges, lawyers, experts and witnesses all the time.



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