By Dr. Mercola
August 10, 2018, a jury ruled in favor of plaintiff Dewayne Johnson1,2,3,4,5 in a truly historic case against Monsanto. Johnson — the first of over 8,000 cases pending against the infamous chemical company which has since been bought by Bayer AG6,7 — claimed Monsanto's Roundup caused his Non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
According to the ruling, Monsanto "acted with malice or oppression" and was responsible for "negligent failure" by not warning consumers about the carcinogenicity of this pernicious weed killer. Monsanto has been ordered to pay $289 million in damages to Johnson.
In The Highwire video above, medical journalist Del Bigtree takes a deep dive into this groundbreaking win, revealing evidence presented to the jury — email correspondence and corporate documents that created a comprehensive narrative of corporate malfeasance and collusion with U.S. regulatory agencies — ultimately leading the jury to give Johnson a quarter of a billion dollars in damages.
Summary of Monsanto's Battle to Squash Evidence of Carcinogenicity
The beginning of the end for Monsanto really began in 2015, when the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the cancer research arm of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the "gold standard" in carcinogenicity research, reclassified glyphosate as a "probable human carcinogen."8,9
This determination was based on evidence showing the popular weed killer can cause Non-Hodgkin lymphoma and lung cancer in humans, along with "convincing evidence" it can cause cancer in animals. In response, Monsanto launched an all-out attack on IARC and its researchers, and even lobbied to strip IARC of its U.S. funding.
Then, in January 2017, the American Chemistry Council, of which Monsanto is a member, went on to form a front group called Campaign for Accuracy in Public Health Research,10 the express purpose of which is to discredit the IARC and seek to reform the IARC Monographs Program, which evaluates and determines the carcinogenicity of chemicals.11 As reported by the Union of Concerned Scientists on July 11, 2018:12
"A rider [was added to] the House version of the HHS [Department of Health and Human Services] appropriations bill that would prevent the National Institutes of Health from lending any financial support to IARC unless it agrees to push for reforms at IARC that have been called for by [industry ally U.S. Rep.] Lamar Smith and the House Science Committee at the bequest of the chemical industry."
Monsanto Fought — and Lost — Proposition 65 Cancer Warning Label
Following the IARC's determination that glyphosate is probably carcinogenic to humans in 2015, California's Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) announced it intended to list glyphosate as a chemical known to cause cancer under Proposition 65, which requires consumer products with potential cancer-causing ingredients to bear warning labels.
Monsanto filed formal comments with OEHHA saying the plan to list glyphosate as a carcinogen should be withdrawn. When OEHHA refused to cave, Monsanto sued OEHHA in January 2016 to stop the glyphosate/cancer classification. OEHHA filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit and a Fresno, California, superior court judge ruled on their behalf in February 2017.
Alas, Monsanto continued filing legal appeals to block the cancer warning from being implemented. In its latest attempt, Monsanto tried to have a provision of the law removed that allows the OEHHA from taking scientific findings from outside experts — such as the IARC — into consideration.
Mere days after Johnson's verdict, Monsanto lost against California yet again. As reported by Sustainable Pulse:13
"This decision leaves in place lower court decisions upholding a provision of the voter-approved initiative that allows outside expert scientific findings to be considered when adding chemicals to the public list of carcinogens … 'Monsanto doesn't have the right to decide which scientific experts are permitted to inform the public about cancer-causing chemicals.
By refusing to consider this case, the Supreme Court has allowed Proposition 65 to keep working the way voters intended when the initiative was passed in 1986,' said Avinash Kar, senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council."
This is another piece of good news, as this means California will be able to require Roundup and other glyphosate-containing products to bear a cancer warning label, and since companies rarely want to go through the extra work of making different product labels for different states, this likely means all Americans will finally be informed of the fact that Roundup is carcinogenic.
Evidence Shows EPA Colluded With Monsanto to Hide Evidence of Carcinogenicity
Throughout its legal battles, Monsanto has relied heavily on evidence by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which, despite IARC findings, has continued to maintain that glyphosate is probably not carcinogenic to humans.
However, internal documents obtained during the discovery process of Johnson's case revealed the EPA colluded with Monsanto to protect the company's interests — actually manipulating and preventing key investigations into glyphosate's cancer-causing potential. You can review key documents from this case on the U.S. Right to Know website.14
A 2017 Spiegel article15 also delves into some of this damning evidence, which includes correspondence that clearly reveals Monsanto knew Roundup had safety problems, and in more ways than one:
"The Monsanto researchers also behaved irresponsibly when it comes to the question of Roundup's absorption into the body," Spiegel writes. "In their own animal experiments back in 2002, the company's experts discovered that 'between 5 and 10 percent' of the substance penetrated the skin of rats.
The rate was much higher than expected and the result had the potential to 'blow' the 'Roundup risk evaluations,' reads one email. As a consequence, the author of the email wrote: 'We decided thus to STOP the study.' Laboratory animals also absorbed more Roundup ingredients through the digestive tract than had been hoped for.
Above all, the Monsanto papers show that the experts were very aware of a fact that is often lost in the public debate: In addition to glyphosate, herbicides like Roundup contain other dangerous chemicals that are necessary to enable the active ingredient to penetrate hard plant walls, among other things. These ingredients are often more harmful than the active ingredient on its own."
Summary of Johnson's Case
In the featured video, Bigtree interviews Baum Hedlund attorney Brent Wisner, lead trial counsel for Johnson and thousands of other plaintiffs who believe their Non-Hodgkin lymphoma — a type of cancer that starts in your white blood cells (lymphocytes), which are part of your immune system — was caused by Roundup exposure.
More than 500 of these cases are currently pending in a multidistrict litigation (MDL) with the U.S. District Court in San Francisco.16 While the MDL procedure is similar to a class-action suit in that it consolidates pretrial proceedings, each case will get its own jury trial, and the outcomes will vary depending on the strength of the evidence in any given case.
Johnson's lawsuit was filed in state court rather than through an MDL and was granted an expedited trial due to the fact that he's nearing death.17,18,19 In California, if the plaintiff dies, no punitive damages can be awarded, so Johnson agreed to be the first one to take Monsanto on.
Johnson, a 46-year-old husband and father of two, sprayed an estimated 150 gallons of Roundup 20 to 40 times per year while working as a groundskeeper for the Benicia school district in California, from 2012 through late 2015.20
Johnson was diagnosed with a rare and deadly form of Non-Hodgkin lymphoma called mycosis fungoides in August 2014. He told his doctor the rash he'd developed that summer would worsen after exposure to the herbicide. His lawsuit, filed in 2016 after he became too ill to work, accused Monsanto of hiding the health hazards of Roundup.
His court case, presided by Superior Court Judge Suzanne Ramos Bolanos, began June 18, 2018, and ended August 10 with a ruling in his favor.21 As mentioned, the jury awarded Johnson $289 million in damages — an amount that effectively wipes out Monsanto's reserve fund for environmental and litigation liability, which according to Bloomberg22 totaled $277 million as of August 2018.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Monsanto's Corporate Culture and Toxic Legacy
Wisner is also joined by co-counsel Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has been an environmental lawyer for 30 years, who commented on Monsanto's "antidemocratic and antihumanistic" corporate ways, saying:
"We really were up against an industry that has employed all of the techniques pioneered by the tobacco industry.
Over 60 years, Big Tobacco killed 1 out of every 5 of its customers who used its products as directed, was able to avoid any kind of regulatory interference, because it pioneered these techniques of ghostwriting science, compromising science, corrupting public officials, capturing the agencies that are supposed to protect Americans from pollution, and Monsanto really was part of the group that pioneered those techniques — and also of using ad hominem attacks.
Monsanto is the same company that was making DDT and masterminded and orchestrated the attack on Rachael Carson … [they] tried to personally destroy her, as she died of cancer. On agent orange, it led the fight to deny rights and deny compensation to tens of thousands of American veterans who had been exposed in Vietnam to this terrible chemical.
I've been suing one of Monsanto's chemicals for 35 years, PCBs, which Monsanto is the only producer of. It contaminated the Hudson River. In more recent years, I've brought a series of lawsuits against Monsanto because of the PCBs put into caulking in American schools. Half the schools built between 1950 and 1977 have calking in their windows filled with PCBs.
Monsanto knew PCB was carcinogenic and an endocrine disruptor and children should never be exposed to it. And it knew PCB was about to be heavily regulated if it got banned. So, it ordered all of its sales forces to … [get rid of it by selling] it for caulking for schools. This is the mentality of a very corrupt corporate culture."
Trial Counsels Discuss the Evidence Against Monsanto
As noted by Kennedy, until now, Monsanto has had a reputation of being untouchable. Wisner finally broke the magic spell with his phenomenal ability to create a comprehensive narrative, showing exactly how Monsanto has been able to get away with murder, and producing the evidence needed to support that narrative.
As mentioned, Wisner was able to show corporate correspondence and documents that clearly discussed Monsanto's inability to prove Roundup is noncarcinogenic. In fact, Monsanto toxicologist Donna Farmer, Ph.D., who in 2016 appeared on the TV show "The Doctors" defending the safety of Roundup, years earlier had written an email stating:
"The terms glyphosate and Roundup cannot be used interchangeably, nor can you use 'Roundup' for all glyphosate-based herbicides anymore. For example, you cannot say that Roundup is not a carcinogen … we have not done the necessary testing on the formulation to make that statement."
Indeed, as Wisner notes, Roundup is not just glyphosate. It also contains a number of surfactants to solubilize it and other chemicals, and the synergistic action between all of these chemicals has actually been shown to be far more toxic than glyphosate alone.
This was recently confirmed in tests23 conducted by the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP). According to the NTP's summary of the results, glyphosate formulations significantly alter the viability of human cells by disrupting the functionality of cell membranes. In layman's terms, Roundup kills human cells.
Recent research24,25 by the highly respected Ramazzini Institute in Italy also reveals daily ingestion of glyphosate at the acceptable daily dietary exposure level set by the EPA alters sexual development in rats, produces changes in the intestinal microbiome, and exhibits genotoxic effects.
Wisner made every effort to get Farmer to testify. Not only did she evade being served, when they were finally able to catch her, Monsanto "fought tooth and nail" to prevent her from taking the stand. They ultimately won, and Wisner was not able to get her to testify. Still, email correspondence to and from Farmer was revealing enough.
Success Became Monsanto's Downfall
According to Kennedy and Wisner, the extreme success of Roundup is ultimately what became its downfall. Roundup is now the most widely used agricultural chemical in the history of the world, and its sheer pervasiveness led to increased scientific investigation. With that increased scrutiny by independent researchers, more and more evidence of harm was published.
Secondly, in 2005 Monsanto started recommending the off-label use of Roundup as a desiccant on non-GMO grains. Essentially, by spraying Roundup on the grain right before harvest, it dries the grain, making it easier to harvest and allows the farmer greater profits, as they're penalized when grain contains moisture. The greater the moisture content of the grain at sale, the lower the price they get.
As a result of this successful campaign, farmers began spraying Roundup directly on food preharvest, whereas previously it was primarily used as weed control. This is why we're now finding glyphosate in just about everything — it's been found in every processed food tested, in air samples, rain samples, municipal water supplies, soil samples, breast milk and urine.
According to Bigtree, two recent studies even revealed the presence of glyphosate in several vaccines, including the pneumococcal, Tdap, hepatitis B (which is injected on the day of birth), influenza and MMR. The MMR vaccine had the highest amounts at 0.8 parts of glyphosate per billion.
Ironically, one of Farmer's talking points during her appearance on "The Doctors" was that IARC was looking at the effects of injected glyphosate, which is not how it's used. Yet now we're finding vaccines are contaminated with glyphosate, and is in fact injected directly into the body of young children.
Kennedy notes the majority of glyphosate used since its inception has actually been used in the last five years alone. And, as contamination has been detected, concern about its safety has been increasingly strengthened. These factors are ultimately what allowed Wisner to present such a compelling case against Monsanto.
Public Health Impact of Roundup Is Likely To Be Enormous
Keep in mind that Johnson's case is just the beginning. Every day, the law firm of Baum Hedlund is receiving calls from people asking if their cancer might have been caused by Roundup exposure, Kennedy says. Many are farmers, but many are also avid gardeners and people who have used the chemical extensively around their private property.
Eventually, he believes other disease categories may be added to the growing mountain of lawsuits against Monsanto. Aside from the over 8,000 cases of plaintiffs with Non-Hodgkin lymphoma, the evidence also suggests glyphosate and/or Roundup may be linked to liver cancer (which is now occurring in children), brain tumors and health problems associated with endocrine disruption.
Indeed, aside from its carcinogenic potential, independent research has connected glyphosate-based herbicides with a growing list of disturbing health and environmental effects. For example, glyphosate has been shown to:
Affect your body's ability to produce fully functioning proteins |
Inhibit the shikimate pathway (found in gut bacteria) |
Interfere with the function of cytochrome P450 enzymes (required for activation of vitamin D and the creation of nitric oxide and cholesterol sulfate) |
Chelate important minerals |
Disrupt sulfate synthesis and transport |
Interfere with the synthesis of aromatic amino acids and methionine, resulting in folate and neurotransmitter shortages |
Disrupt the human and animal gut microbiome by acting as an antibiotic |
Destroy the gut lining, which can lead to symptoms of gluten intolerance |
Impair methylation pathways |
Inhibit pituitary release of thyroid stimulating hormone, which can lead to hypothyroidism26,27 |
Shocking Evidence of Ghostwriting Revealed During Johnson's Trial
In their interview, Bigtree and Wisner discuss some of the most revelatory pieces of information brought up during Johnson's trial. As mentioned earlier, you can review many of these so-called "Monsanto Papers" on the U.S. Right to Know website.28
You can also read "Spinning Science & Silencing Scientists: A Case Study in How the Chemical Industry Attempts to Influence Science,"29 a minority staff report dated February 2018, prepared for U.S. House members of the Committee on Science, Space and Technology.
For example, in a November 1, 2015, email, William Heydens, safety lead for Monsanto, writes to John Acquavella, a former employee: "I thought we discussed previously that it was decided by our management that we would not be able to use you or Larry [Kier] as panelists/authors because of your prior employment at Monsanto …" to which Acquavella responds, "We call that ghostwriting and it is unethical."
According to Wisner, after IARC published its findings on glyphosate, Monsanto "orchestrated a public outcry" by convening a "panel of independent experts" who reviewed the data and published an analysis of the evidence. "The problem was, they were written by Monsanto employees and former employees," Wisner says.
In the email exchange above, Heydens wanted to remove Acquavella's name from the report so that people would not know he was part of it, and Acquavella was reminding him that this strategy, which is known as ghostwriting, is unethical, and that they could not do that.
In the end, the report did list Acquavella as an author, but it specifically states that Monsanto had no influence over the report and did not write any part of it. Yet email correspondence shows Heydens actively writing and editing it. All of this evidence was shown to the jury, and these outright lies are ultimately what prompted them to award punitive damages totaling a quarter of a billion dollars.
In "The Monsanto Papers: Poisoning the Scientific Well,"30 a paper published in The International Journal of Risk & Safety in Medicine, June 2018, Leemon McHenry writes:
"The documents reveal Monsanto-sponsored ghostwriting of articles published in toxicology journals and the lay media, interference in the peer review process, behind-the-scenes influence on retraction and the creation of a so-called academic website as a front for the defense of Monsanto products …
The use of third-party academics in the corporate defense of glyphosate reveals that this practice extends beyond the corruption of medicine and persists in spite of efforts to enforce transparency in industry manipulation."
The Parry Report
As mentioned, correspondence by Farmer reveals Monsanto had never actually conducted any carcinogenicity or safety studies on the Roundup formulation. In 1999, Dr. James Parry, a geneticist at Swansea University at the time (he died a year later), was hired by Monsanto to evaluate the genotoxic potential of glyphosate.
After reviewing the available research, Parry found that "glyphosate is capable of producing genotoxicity both in vivo and in vitro by a mechanism based upon the production of oxidative damage." In his report, known as The Parry Report, he also noted that: "On the basis of the study of Lioi et al … I conclude that glyphosate is a potential clastogenic," meaning a mutagenic agent that can break, delete, add or rearrange chromosomes.
In other words, Monsanto's own expert was telling them they had a serious problem. Parry noted that the real danger appears to be the synergistic effect between glyphosate and other chemicals in the formula, such as the surfactants, and he told the company they had to study the formulated product as a whole. He also listed specific types of studies he felt needed to be done.
Internal email correspondence reveals other Monsanto scientists discussed ways in which they might be able to "move Dr. Parry from his position" that glyphosate was toxic. Parry, who had signed a secrecy agreement with the company, never published these findings. What did Monsanto do?
They avoided the toxicity issues simply by never doing any of the research on the formulation. A September 16, 1999 email from Heydens, himself a Ph.D. toxicologist, reads in part:
"We want to find/develop someone who is comfortable with the genotox profile of glyphosate/Roundup and who can be influential with regulators and Scientific Outreach operations when genotox issues arise. My read is that Parry is not currently such a person, and it would take quite some time and $$$/studies to get him there. We simply aren't going to do the studies Parry suggests …"
The Williams, Kroes and Munro Report
What's more, Monsanto buried The Parry Report. Regulators were never informed of its contents. Shortly after The Parry Report was concluded, another report was published, called the Williams, Kroes and Munro Report, which was supposed to be a comprehensive review of the genotoxic profile of glyphosate. It found no problems at all, concluding glyphosate is completely safe.
Guess which report was sent off to regulators and used by the EPA to support its conclusion that glyphosate is nontoxic? You guessed it: The Williams, Kroes and Munro Report, issued in 2000. During trial, Wisner stressed to the jury that all of this is clear evidence of malice. It proves the company had a conscious disregard for human health.
The Williams, Kroes and Munro Report also appears to have been of Monsanto's own making. In an email to Farmer dated February 19, 2015, Heydens writes:
"A less expensive/more palatable approach might be to involve experts only for the areas of contention, epidemiology and possibly MOA [mode of action] (depending on what comes out of the IARC meeting), and we ghostwrite the exposure tox & genotox sections.
An option would be to add Greim and Kier or Kirkland to have their names on the publication, but we would be keeping the cost down by us doing the writing and they would just edit and sign their names so to speak. Recall that is how we handled Williams, Kroes & Munro, 2000."
As noted by Wisner, not only did Monsanto bury The Parry Report, which revealed they had a serious health problem on their hands, they ghostwrote a report that claimed the complete opposite. That fabricated "evidence" allowed them to sidestep toxicity concerns for the next 15 years. "That is fraud … That's evil," Wisner says. The jury obviously agreed.
Science Clearly Demonstrates Glyphosate Is Carcinogenic
"I'm 34 years old. I will try these cases until I'm 90 if I have to," Wisner says. "If I have to put Bayer in bankruptcy, I will. We have the goods here, and it just shows rampant corporate malfeasance." Monsanto, meanwhile, insists there are 800 studies produced over the last 40 years showing glyphosate and Roundup is safe.
"It's garbage," Wisner says. "The 800 studies they're talking about are not about whether it causes cancer. They're looking at stuff that you have to look at — does it cause eye irritation, does it cause your hair to change color, does it cause skin rashes — all these volumes of tests that test all these random things …
But when it comes to cancer, there's only been about 13 animal studies and about six or seven epidemiology studies. And when you actually look at the data, actually look at the science, and I showed this jury every single one of those studies.
I walked through them one by one … and with the exception of two or three, they are positive … They show clear correlation. They show that glyphosate causes tumors … creates tumors in mice, that it's causing Non-Hodgkin lymphoma in humans …"
One particularly powerful study showed that when people are exposed to Roundup via skin contact (the individuals in this study had been doused with Roundup via aerial sprayings), there's clear evidence of genetic damage. Every single person that had been exposed to the aerial spray showed evidence off this genetic damage.
Bayer Bought a Nightmare
Clearly, Bayer has purchased a nightmare, and may be suffering some buyer's remorse right about now. Indeed, virtually every single person on the planet is now ingesting and being injected or in some way is exposed to Roundup, and the evidence of serious health consequences just keeps growing. The liability is almost beyond comprehension. Time will tell whether Monsanto's toxic legacy will put Bayer out of business.
In the meantime, it's up to each of us to take whatever precautions we can to avoid exposure. That includes avoiding using Roundup and other glyphosate-based herbicides at home, convincing local companies to stop using it in public areas and around schools, and by buying organic foods whenever possible and taking steps to detoxify our bodies.
Wisner brings up more evidence presented in court, and I highly recommend watching the interview in its entirety. Considering the evidence, it's really no wonder Wisner won this case, and it surely does not bode well for Bayer-Monsanto, seeing how there are many thousands more cases just like it waiting in the wings.
And, according to Wisner, he has hundreds of documents that are even more damning than those brought to bear during Johnson's trial, which was rushed to trial. So, he's confident he will continue to win these cases and, hopefully, change the world for the better.