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  • From: Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] One man's suffering has exposed Monsanto's secrets to the world | Carey Gillam | Business | The Guardian
  • Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2018 02:24:26 -0400

Judgement against Monsanto marks 'end of arrogance', says French
environment minister
http://www.france24.com/en/20180813-france-environment-minister-hulot-monsanto-end-arrogance

French Environment Minister Nicolas Hulot said Sunday he hoped the verdict
against Monsanto for failing to inform the public about the risks of its
product would put an end to political indifference to the danger of
pesticides.

Latest update : 2018-08-13

France's environment minister made his remarks after the agrochemical giant
was ordered by a Californian court to pay nearly $290 million for failing
to warn a dying groundskeeper, Dewayne Johnson, that the Monsanto product
Roundup might cause cancer <http://www.france24.com/en/tag/cancer/>.

Speaking in French newspaper Libération on Sunday, Hulot said that the
judgment against Monsanto "corrects the indifference of politicians".

“This decision confirms what many whistleblowers have been saying for so
many years about the dangerousness of glyphosate weedkiller.”

Monsanto’s parent company, the German pharmaceutical group Bayer,
experienced its biggest one-day fall in more than nine years on the
European stock market. It was down 10.4 percent after Monsanto, the U.S.
agriculture giant it acquired in June, was ordered to pay damages in the
lawsuit.

Following the verdict, Bayer insisted on Saturday that the weed killer
Roundup was "safe” and that the California ruling went against the evidence.

"On the basis of scientific conclusions, the views of worldwide regulatory
authorities and the decades-long practical experience with glyphosate use,
Bayer is convinced that glyphosate is safe and does not cause cancer," the
company said in a statement.

It said other court proceedings with other juries might "arrive at
different conclusions" than the jury which ruled in the California lawsuit,
the first to accuse glyphosate of causing cancer.

Jurors unanimously found that Monsanto -- which vowed to appeal -- acted
with "malice" and that its weedkillers Roundup and the professional grade
version RangerPro contributed "substantially" to Johnson's terminal illness.

“This is the end of arrogance for Bayer and Monsanto. But it (this verdict)
can never repair what this American gardener has irreversibly suffered.
This is also true for Paul François [a Charentais cereal farmer who has
been fighting Monsanto since 2007 after he was seriously poisoned by the
Monsanto herbicide Lasso],” said Hulot. “Nothing will repair the pain and
loneliness of these victims. It really is the weak fighting against the
strong.

“Let us never forget that Monsanto dragged American farmers to court who
were inadvertently growing plants patented by the group, simply because the
wind had spread them in their fields. Nor will this decision help the
hundreds of Indian farmers who have found themselves in psychological and
economic distress because of Monsanto.”


--
Lawrence F. London, Jr.
lfljvenaura@gmail.com
https://sites.google.com/site/avantgeared




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