SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
The active ingredient in RoundUp is glyphosate, which the World Health Organization classifies as a probable human carcinogen. (Photo: Mike Mozart/Flickr/cc)
Trump's EPA Goes to Bat for Bayer as Company Fights $25 Million Verdict in Roundup Cancer Case
The chemical company is asking a federal appeals court to reverse its ruling in favor of a California man suffering from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
Dec 22, 2019
President Donald Trump's Environmental Protection Agency--already accused of being "pesticide cheerleader"--threw its weight behind chemical company Bayer AG on Friday when the agency asked a federal appeals court to reverse a lower court's ruling in favor of a man who said the company's Roundup weedkiller was responsible for his cancer.
The case centers on Edwin Hardeman of California, who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2015 after using the glyphosate-based pesticide, made by Monsanto, for years on his property. Bayer acquired Monsanto last year.
A federal jury in July ordered the company to pay Hardeman roughly $25 million in damages, a lower amount than the $80 million a federal judge had ordered months earlier.
The EPA maintains--to the outrage of environmental and public health groups--that glyphosate is not a carcinogen. The federal decision notwithstanding, California in 2017 agreed with the World Health Organization's 2015 classification of glyphosate as a "probable carcinogen." Trump's EPA has pushed back on the state's finding and said that product labels informing users of that cancer risk would "misbranding" and announced in August of this year that the agency would not approve of labels carrying that warning.
In an amicus brief filed Friday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, attorneys with the EPA and Justice Department said,
EPA approved the label for the pesticide/herbicide at issue here, Roundup, through a registration process that did not require a cancer warning. In fact, EPA has never required a labeling warning of a cancer risk posed by Roundup, and such a warning would be inconsistent with the agency's scientific assessments of the carcinogenic potential of the product. Mr. Hardeman nevertheless sought damages under California common law, alleging that Monsanto had failed to adequately warn consumers of cancer risks posed by the active ingredient in Roundup. FIFRA therefore preempts Mr. Hardeman's claims to the extent that they are based on the lack of a warning on Roundup's labeling.
The filing from the federal government came the same week Bayer AG asked the appeals court to toss out the lower court's ruling and defended Roundup's safety.
Bayer is currently facing nearly 43,000 claims related to glyphosate-linked cancer in federal courts. An end to the company's legal woes is unlikely to happen soon, according to Bloomberg Environment.
"The only vehicle that remotely approaches [an end to litigation] might be bankruptcy," Loyola Law School professor Adam Zimmerman told the outlet last week. "Short of that, or some victories in court, I don't see what kind of arrangement would absolve them of future liability."
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
President Donald Trump's Environmental Protection Agency--already accused of being "pesticide cheerleader"--threw its weight behind chemical company Bayer AG on Friday when the agency asked a federal appeals court to reverse a lower court's ruling in favor of a man who said the company's Roundup weedkiller was responsible for his cancer.
The case centers on Edwin Hardeman of California, who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2015 after using the glyphosate-based pesticide, made by Monsanto, for years on his property. Bayer acquired Monsanto last year.
A federal jury in July ordered the company to pay Hardeman roughly $25 million in damages, a lower amount than the $80 million a federal judge had ordered months earlier.
The EPA maintains--to the outrage of environmental and public health groups--that glyphosate is not a carcinogen. The federal decision notwithstanding, California in 2017 agreed with the World Health Organization's 2015 classification of glyphosate as a "probable carcinogen." Trump's EPA has pushed back on the state's finding and said that product labels informing users of that cancer risk would "misbranding" and announced in August of this year that the agency would not approve of labels carrying that warning.
In an amicus brief filed Friday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, attorneys with the EPA and Justice Department said,
EPA approved the label for the pesticide/herbicide at issue here, Roundup, through a registration process that did not require a cancer warning. In fact, EPA has never required a labeling warning of a cancer risk posed by Roundup, and such a warning would be inconsistent with the agency's scientific assessments of the carcinogenic potential of the product. Mr. Hardeman nevertheless sought damages under California common law, alleging that Monsanto had failed to adequately warn consumers of cancer risks posed by the active ingredient in Roundup. FIFRA therefore preempts Mr. Hardeman's claims to the extent that they are based on the lack of a warning on Roundup's labeling.
The filing from the federal government came the same week Bayer AG asked the appeals court to toss out the lower court's ruling and defended Roundup's safety.
Bayer is currently facing nearly 43,000 claims related to glyphosate-linked cancer in federal courts. An end to the company's legal woes is unlikely to happen soon, according to Bloomberg Environment.
"The only vehicle that remotely approaches [an end to litigation] might be bankruptcy," Loyola Law School professor Adam Zimmerman told the outlet last week. "Short of that, or some victories in court, I don't see what kind of arrangement would absolve them of future liability."
President Donald Trump's Environmental Protection Agency--already accused of being "pesticide cheerleader"--threw its weight behind chemical company Bayer AG on Friday when the agency asked a federal appeals court to reverse a lower court's ruling in favor of a man who said the company's Roundup weedkiller was responsible for his cancer.
The case centers on Edwin Hardeman of California, who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2015 after using the glyphosate-based pesticide, made by Monsanto, for years on his property. Bayer acquired Monsanto last year.
A federal jury in July ordered the company to pay Hardeman roughly $25 million in damages, a lower amount than the $80 million a federal judge had ordered months earlier.
The EPA maintains--to the outrage of environmental and public health groups--that glyphosate is not a carcinogen. The federal decision notwithstanding, California in 2017 agreed with the World Health Organization's 2015 classification of glyphosate as a "probable carcinogen." Trump's EPA has pushed back on the state's finding and said that product labels informing users of that cancer risk would "misbranding" and announced in August of this year that the agency would not approve of labels carrying that warning.
In an amicus brief filed Friday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, attorneys with the EPA and Justice Department said,
EPA approved the label for the pesticide/herbicide at issue here, Roundup, through a registration process that did not require a cancer warning. In fact, EPA has never required a labeling warning of a cancer risk posed by Roundup, and such a warning would be inconsistent with the agency's scientific assessments of the carcinogenic potential of the product. Mr. Hardeman nevertheless sought damages under California common law, alleging that Monsanto had failed to adequately warn consumers of cancer risks posed by the active ingredient in Roundup. FIFRA therefore preempts Mr. Hardeman's claims to the extent that they are based on the lack of a warning on Roundup's labeling.
The filing from the federal government came the same week Bayer AG asked the appeals court to toss out the lower court's ruling and defended Roundup's safety.
Bayer is currently facing nearly 43,000 claims related to glyphosate-linked cancer in federal courts. An end to the company's legal woes is unlikely to happen soon, according to Bloomberg Environment.
"The only vehicle that remotely approaches [an end to litigation] might be bankruptcy," Loyola Law School professor Adam Zimmerman told the outlet last week. "Short of that, or some victories in court, I don't see what kind of arrangement would absolve them of future liability."
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.