By Caroline Cox Many parents cheered about 10 years ago when Michelle Obama took on the important task of improving school meals. Of course, every child should have a healthy lunch and breakfast. Most of us have school cafeteria stories; I still remember the feeling of failure I had decades ago when I realized my […]
The first trial claiming long-term use of Monsanto‘s Roundup weedkiller caused the plaintiff’s cancer ended with a $289 million jury verdict in favor of the plaintiff, though that was later reduced by a judge to $78 million. Now, Monsanto’s next date in the judgment seat in California has been set for March 18. California Superior […]
Of all the genetic engineers who have renounced the technology—Arpad Pusztai, Belinda Martineau, Thierry Vrain and John Fagan, among others—because of its shortsighted approach and ability to produce unintended and potentially toxic consequences, Caius Rommens’ story may be the most compelling. Rommens was director of research at Simplot Plant Sciences from 2000 to 2013 where […]
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced Wednesday that it would allow farmers to continue spraying the controversial pesticide dicamba for the next two years. Dicamba is sold by Monsanto to be used on soybean and cotton plants genetically engineered to be resistant to the weedkiller. The problem is that it drifts on the wind, […]
A California groundskeeper who won a landmark cancer trial against Roundup-maker Monsanto has agreed to accept $78 million, a significant reduction from the jury’s original award of $289 million, the Associated Press reported. A new trial would have taken place if plaintiff DeWayne “Lee” Johnson did not accept the lessened damages ordered by Judge Suzanne […]
An environmental advocacy group has discovered yet more traces of a potentially cancer-causing chemical in popular oat breakfast and snack food marketed to children. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) announced Wednesday that tests it commissioned found glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto‘s Roundup weed killer, in nearly 30 General Mills and Quaker brand products made […]
A San Francisco judge made a surprise ruling Monday and upheld a jury’s verdict that Monsanto‘s Roundup weedkiller gave a California groundskeeper cancer, and that the company failed to warn him of the danger, CNN reported. Superior Court Judge Suzanne Bolanos had issued a tentative ruling Oct. 10 ordering a new trial over the punitive […]
By Rebecca Mackelprang A University of California, Berkeley professor stands at the front of the room, delivering her invited talk about the potential of genetic engineering. Her audience, full of organic farming advocates, listens uneasily. She notices a man get up from his seat and move toward the front of the room. Confused, the speaker […]
Monsanto will ask a San Francisco judge on Wednesday to throw out a jury’s $289 million award to a former school groundskeeper who claimed the company’s glyphosate-based weedkillers, Roundup and Ranger Pro, caused his non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Superior Court Judge Suzanne Bolanos, who oversaw the trial, has the power to overturn the verdict, reduce the award […]