Bayer/Monsanto Wins Roundup Case as Supreme Court Blocks Suit over Link Between Herbicide & Cancer

The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 to restrict thousands of lawsuits claiming Bayer, the parent company of Monsanto, had a duty to warn consumers about potential cancer risks from its popular weed killer Roundup. The case before the Supreme Court began in St. Louis, Missouri, where a resident named John Durnell, who had used Roundup for decades and was later diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, sued Monsanto under Missouri state law for not putting a warning label on its product. But because the federal Environmental Protection Agency found no cancer risk in its assessment of Roundup, the court has ruled against Durnell. “The ruling essentially says that only the EPA can make a determination that something is harmful to us and has to carry a warning label,” explains reporter Nate Halverson, who has been documenting health and environmental harms allegedly linked to Roundup, as well as efforts to hold Monsanto accountable. In his reporting, Halverson found that scientific studies cited by the EPA in its Roundup assessment were “ghostwritten” by Monsanto itself — and “that ghostwritten information has now made its way into the Supreme Court’s decision.” Transcript AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González. In another major Supreme Court ruling, the court blocked thousands of cancer patients from suing the manufacturer of the popular weed killer glyphosate, marketed as Roundup. The main plaintiff in the case is a Missouri man who sued Monsanto and its parent company, Bayer, in 2019, alleging 20 years of exposure to Roundup caused him to develop blood cancer. A jury found Bayer had failed to warn him of the risks associated with Roundup, and awarded him $1.25 million in damages. The Trump administration, which has called Roundup safe, sided with Bayer in its challenge at the Supreme Court. We go now to Nate Halverson, an Emmy Award-winning reporter at the Center for Investigative Reporting. Recent investigation of his is titled “We Are Bombarding America’s Forests With Roundup.” Halverson’s new piece for Mother Jones is headlined “The EPA Relied on an Influential Glyphosate Study Even After Learning Monsanto Was a 'Ghost Writer.'” Nate, if you can respond to the Supreme Court decision and explain exactly what you meant in that title? NATE HALVERSON: Yeah. The Supreme Court decision ruled that the EPA is now our single point of failure for warning us about harmful effects from chemicals like glyphosate, that they alone can require a warning label. And what I found was, is that the EPA has been relying on ghost-written studies, ghost-written by Monsanto itself, to say that this product is OK. JUAN GONZÁLEZ: So, Nate, can you explain to me a little more about what the court decided here? Are they effectively saying that states cannot have their own safety standards separate and apart from a government’s, from those of the federal government, in terms of these warning labels? NATE HALVERSON: Yeah, that’s right. The ruling essentially says that only the EPA can make a determination that something is harmful to us and has to carry a warning label. John Durnell had sued in state court, saying that the laws in — that the laws required in his state that he be warned that organizations such as the World Health Organization had declared it a probable carcinogen, and that by not warning him, they were in breach of state law, and that is how he sought justice. And these cases, these state cases, have been going on for a while. As you mentioned, there are thousands of them pending. But because of these cases, all of the litigation, I think there’s now more than $12 billion in financial settlements and payouts to people who have developed illnesses, like non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Because of these cases, we have gotten access to internal Monsanto company records and emails, and what those emails have shown was that, internally, Monsanto had identified peer-reviewed studies that were coming out that showed how this herbicide, the most widely used herbicide in the world, could damage people’s DNA, which can lead to cancer. And so, as a response to that, what these lawsuits uncovered is that Monsanto launched a program secretly to hire what appeared to be independent scientists to write reports and do things like, quote, “get up and shout that glyphosate is nontoxic.” And then, once these reports were written, Monsanto sort of steps back and says, “We have nothing to do with them,” and the authors say that. And then they’re presented to the public and to regulators like the EPA as this independent analysis. And it’s this, these ghost-written studies that Monsanto secretly orchestrated, that has absolutely infiltrated the EPA’s assessment of these products. And unfortunately, in the Supreme Court case, that ghost-written information has now made its way into the Supreme Court’s decision, because twice Justice Kavanaugh cited the very EPA report that relied on these Monsanto ghost-written studies. JUAN GONZÁLEZ: So, what is the recourse now for individuals in this country who are sickened or poisoned by — not just by Roundup, but by many other pesticides and chemicals? NATE HALVERSON: Well, what Justice Kavanaugh said was the recourse is that people could contact the EPA and let them know that they had gotten sick and that the EPA should look at it again. But, look, I contacted the EPA when I found out that they had been relying on this ghost-written study, and that, in fact, the EPA internally had identified this ghost-written study nearly a decade ago as being corrupted Monsanto scientists, which its Inspector General’s Office, its criminal division, had called research misconduct. And when I contacted the EPA, they sent me a statement back that was riddled with inaccuracies. They said that this study, this ghost-written study, only appeared in a footnote of their assessment. That was inaccurate. It appeared in the body of their assessment. They said that the studies that this ghost-written report was citing had already been published. And that was inaccurate. These were all new studies, actually, it turns out, perhaps not surprisingly, that were studies that were coming from data that the glyphosate manufacturers themselves had supplied. AMY GOODMAN: Nate — NATE HALVERSON: And so, you know — yeah. AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to a clip from your Mother Jones documentary, which features a 2015 interview by French journalist Paul Moreira with the herbicide advocate Patrick Moore. PATRICK MOORE: You can drink a whole quart of it, and it won’t hurt you. It’s — PAUL MOREIRA: You want to drink some? We have some here. PATRICK MOORE: I’d be happy to, actually. Not – not really, but — PAUL MOREIRA: Not really? PATRICK MOORE: I know it wouldn’t hurt me. PAUL MOREIRA: And if you say so, I have some glyphosate here. PATRICK MOORE: No, no, I’m not stupid. PAUL MOREIRA: Ah, OK, so, you — PATRICK MOORE: No, but I know that — PAUL MOREIRA: So, it’s dangerous, right? PATRICK MOORE: I know — no, people try to commit suicide with it and fail fairly regularly. PAUL MOREIRA: No, no, but let’s — let’s tell the truth. PATRICK MOORE: It’s not dangerous to humans. PAUL MOREIRA: It’s dangerous. PATRICK MOORE: No, it’s not. PAUL MOREIRA: Oh. So, are you ready to drink one glass of glyphosate? PATRICK MOORE: No, I’m not an idiot. AMY GOODMAN: If you can, in this last 30 seconds we have, Nate Halverson, summarize the significance of what we have just heard, and the Supreme Court decision? NATE HALVERSON: Yeah, I think a lot of people have really grave concerns about a chemical that has now shown, in lower courts, to cause cancer. And the Supreme Court ruling didn’t say it doesn’t cause cancer. It didn’t say it doesn’t hurt your gut microbiome, didn’t say it doesn’t hurt most endangered species. It just said that our single point of recourse now is to try to get justice through the EPA by letting them know. And we’ll have to see how that plays out in court and what happens with these thousands of cases that are now sitting out there from people who say it gave them cancer. AMY GOODMAN: Nate Halverson, Emmy Award-winning reporter at the Center for Investigative Reporting. We’ll link to your recent articles. And a very happy birthday to Jon Randolph! I’m headed to Rhode Island this weekend, in Providence tonight at 7:00, tomorrow afternoon at 3:20 at the Avon Cinema for the film about Democracy Now!, Steal This Story, Please!, with the directors Tia Lessin and Carl Deal. We’ll be doing Q&A afterwards. Then to Newport, Rhode Island, at the Jane Pickens Theater on Saturday night and on Sunday at 2:00. And that is this weekend. Check our website at democracynow.org. We’re hiring an education program manager. Check it out at democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González. Media Options