Round up of Bayer’s recent legal woes from Monsanto

Posted on by Corporations and Health Watch

Bayer

Agricultural Application Trends of Glyphosate in the United States According to U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Data Credit from  new ATSDR Report on Glyphosate

A French court has ruled that Monsanto was liable for the sickness of a farmer who inhaled one of its weed killers, in another legal setback for the Bayer-owned business over health claims, reports Reuters.

In the latest stage of a decade-long legal tussle, the appeals court in Lyon on Thursday found in favor of farmer Paul Francois’ claim that Monsanto’s Lasso weed killer had made him sick and that the product’s labeling had been inadequate. Francois, 55, says he suffered neurological problems, including memory loss, fainting and headaches, after accidentally inhaling Lasso in 2004 while working on his farm.

“Mr. Francois justifiably concludes that the product, due to its inadequate labeling that did not respect applicable regulations, did not offer the level of safety he could legitimately expect,” the court said in its ruling.

Another Reuters story reported that  Bayer said it would comply with a U.S. federal judge’s order to enter mediation with a plaintiff who claims the company failed to warn against an alleged cancer risk from its Roundup weed killer. Bayer has seen $34 billion wiped off its market value since August, when a first U.S. jury found Bayer liable because Monsanto, the Creve Coeur-based company acquired by Bayer for $63 billion last year, had not warned of the alleged risk from Roundup, which is based on active ingredient glyphosate. It suffered a similar courtroom defeat last month and more than 10,000 cases are pending.

U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria, who presided over the first two cases in federal court, said in a filing dated Thursday that Bayer and another plaintiff, Elaine Stevick, were ordered to start confidential mediation.

A third Reuters post reported that one of Bayer’s largest shareholders tore into the company’s management on Wednesday for underestimating the legal risks of its takeover of Monsanto, setting the stage for a fiery annual general meeting after a 30 percent plunge in the shares. “It’s quite drastic when a takeover triggers such value destruction and reputational damage so quickly. There can be no talk of a successful takeover anymore,” Ingo Speich, the head of sustainability and corporate governance at Deka Investment, told Reuters.

“What’s startling is that things have effectively moved beyond management’s control because we’re now at a point where the decisions over future development are made in court rooms,” he said, adding Bayer had clearly underestimated the risks.

Finally, a public health agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), released the long-awaited Draft Toxicological Profile for Glyphosate.  The report supports and strengthens the 2015 cancer assessment of another health agency, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).

As the environmental group NRD Cnotes, a pattern is emerging: non-industry experts (Zhang et al 2019) and health agencies IARC and ATSDR are finding a link with glyphosate and cancer; whereas, regulatory agencies are lining up with Monsanto and Bayer that it does not cause cancer, even when reviewing the same scientific evidence.

New study shows alcohol advertisers use magazines to target youth

Posted on by Corporations and Health Watch

David Jernigan is an Associate Professor and the Director of the Center on Alcohol Marketing to Youth at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University.  He has spent many years studying alcohol advertising to youth.  In a new article published in The Journal of Adolescent Health, Elizabeth Rhoades, also at Johns Hopkins, and Jernigan reported on their study on alcohol advertising in magazines.  Corporations and Health Watch’s Nicholas Freudenberg asked Jernigan some questions about the new study.  In addition, David Jernigan’s recent column on state laws to control alcohol marketing to youth “Under the Influence” was recently posted Huff Post Science. To read it, click here. 

 

CHW: How did you do this study?

DJ:  We examined 1,261 ads for alcopops, beer, spirits or wine that appeared more than 2,500 times in 11 magazines that are popular among teens. These magazines have youth readerships equaling or exceeding 15 percent.  The ads were rated according to a number of factors, such as whether they portrayed over-consumption of alcohol, addiction content, sex-related content, or injury content.

 

CHW:  How common were ads with sexual themes?

DJ: Almost one-fifth of the ads contained sexual connotations or sexual objectification.

 

CHW:  What kinds of alcoholic beverages were being advertised in the magazines you studied?

DJ: We found that in our sample, ads were concentrated across type of alcohol, brand and outlet, with spirits representing about two-thirds of the sample, followed by ads for beer, which comprised almost another 30 percent. The ten most advertised brands, a list comprised solely of spirits and beer brands, accounted for 30 percent of the sample, and seven brands were responsible for more than half of the violations of industry marketing guidelines.

 

CHW: And what were your conclusions?

DJ:   The content of alcohol ads placed in magazines is more likely to be in violation of industry guidelines if the ad appears in a magazine with sizeable youth readership.  We also found that the prevalence of problematic content in magazine alcohol advertisements is concentrated in advertising for beer and spirits brands.  Violations of industry guidelines and addiction content appear to increase with the size of youth readerships, suggesting that individuals aged 21 and under may be more likely to see such problematic content than adults.

 

CHW:  What does your study say about the alcohol industry’s voluntary codes? 

DJ:   The finding that violations of the alcohol industry’s advertising standards were most common in magazines with the most youthful audiences tells us self-regulated voluntary codes are failing. It’s time to seriously consider stronger limits on youth exposure to alcohol advertising.

 

CHW: So what’s the bottom line meaning of your study?

DJ: Alcohol is responsible for 4,700 deaths per year among young people under the age of 21, and is associated with the three leading causes of death among youth: motor vehicle crashes, homicide and suicide.  Youth are getting hit repeatedly by ads for spirits and beer in magazines geared towards their age demographic.  At least 14 studies have found that the more young people are exposed to alcohol advertising and marketing, the more likely they are to drink, or if already drinking, to drink more. This report should serve as a wake-up call to parents and everyone else concerned about the health of young people.

 

CHW: What’s the mission of your Center?

DJ:  The Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) monitors the marketing practices of the alcohol industry to focus attention and action on industry practices that jeopardize the health and safety of America’s youth. Reducing high rates of underage alcohol consumption and the suffering caused by alcohol-related injuries and deaths among young people requires using the public health strategies of limiting the access to and the appeal of alcohol to underage persons.

Photos courtesy of Center on Alcohol Marketing to Youth