Embattled Bayer is getting a helping hand from Donald Trump.
The German pharmaceuticals titan is currently inundated with lawsuits claiming Roundup, a weedkiller owned by its Monsanto subsidiary, causes cancer. The Trump administration is refusing to approve product labels warning glyphosate — the active ingredient in Roundup — is a carcinogen.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s new guidance is a reaction to California regulators, who have required product labels to warn glyphosate potentially causes cancer since 2017.
“It is irresponsible to require labels on products that are inaccurate when EPA knows the product does not pose a cancer risk,” EPA Administrator Andrew Wheelersaid in a statement. “We will not allow California’s flawed program to dictate federal policy.”
There isn’t a scientific consensus on whether glyphosate causes cancer. The World Health Organization’s cancer agency found glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans.” However, the EPA conducted an independent evaluation and found it’s “not likely to be carcinogenic to humans.”
Bayer faces Roundup-related lawsuits from more than 13,000 farmers, landscapers, and gardeners. It has lost three high-profile court cases since its $63 billion takeover of Monsanto last summer. However, it has successfully reduced the combined jury awards from close to $2.4 billion to less than $200 million.
The company has proposed to pay as much as $8 billion to settle more than 18,000 US lawsuits tied to Roundup, Bloomberg reported last week.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Disclaimer: The contents of this article are of sole responsibility of the author(s). The Centre for Research on Globalization will not be responsible for any inaccurate or incorrect statement in this article. The Centre of Research on Globalization grants permission to cross-post Global Research articles on community internet sites as long the source and copyright are acknowledged together with a hyperlink to the original Global Research article. For publication of Global Research articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact: [email protected]
www.globalresearch.ca contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of "fair use" in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than "fair use" you must request permission from the
copyright owner.
