kurtster wrote: 
You should consider what testing for residue will tell you. If it is in the food, what is the bioavailability and uptake to your system? Once bought a load of hay from a farmer who brought a court case (and lost) against his neighbours for spray drift from their herbicide applications. When the horses ate the hay, our pasture grass died everywhere they defecated. My conclusion was that there was residue which passed through the horses unaltered and killed the grass. That also means that Monsanto's line about glyphosphate having no soil activity is a misdirection. Sure, if it is in the soil it doesn't do anything, but that doesn't say anything one way or another about it's effects in the biosphere.

I use glyphosphate when I run out of benign options but try to limit it to when it is necessary. I think that is wise advice for most things.

 Lazy8 wrote: 
Absolutely. I haven't gone into the original toxicology literature but have read opinion pieces from what I consider reliable scientific sources. Sometimes you just have compromise.

USDA Drops Plan To Test For Monsanto Weed Killer In Food
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One of the USDA’s explanation’s for not testing for glyphosate over the years has been cost – the agency has said that it is too expensive and inefficient to look for glyphosate residues in food headed for American dinner tables. And because glyphosate is considered so safe, testing would be a waste of time, the USDA has stated. That argument mimics Monsanto’s own – the company, which patented glyphosate in 1974 and has been a dominant provider of glyphosate ever since, says if the USDA did seek to test for glyphosate residues in food it would be a “misuse of valuable resources.”

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"glyphosate is considered so safe, testing would be a waste of time,"

Really ?

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
So Glyphosate has not been found in our food chain is what you're trying to say ?

haresfur wrote:

So...you haven't researched it thoroughly but it's dubious.  Got it.

 
Class action just means a large number of plaintiffs represented by a small number of lawyers, and the implication is that any resolution will apply to anyone who belongs in the class—whether they were part of the suit or not. It's often used (as Steeler pointed out) when there is a small amount of harm distributed over a large number of people. Millions of defective shoelaces, say. Not worth any one person suing over but in aggregate a large amount of harm.

Don't know how it works in your part of the world but US civil law is (on paper) winner-takes-all. When plaintiffs lose the suit they get nothing. In a few jurisdictions they have to pay the defendant's costs but that's pretty rare. Class actions are high risk/high reward, so only law firms with deep pockets are likely to take them on. The DUI lawyer on late night TV (sorry, that reference probably just shot past you) isn't likely to be involved.

The game isn't played as written tho. The object usually isn't to go to trial but to make it so expensive and burdensome to fight that the defendant settles just to be done with it. There are a lot more law firms skilled in that art than there are firms that could actually fight it out in court. Class actions are still pretty rare tho.

Just a quick post on class actions:

A long time ago, early in my career, I became familiar with a practice by a lender who skimmed very slight amounts off of every loan  transaction - I am talking between $10 and $20.  No one would sue over those kind of amounts - if they even became aware of it - but these guys were doing it routinely (I forget exactly how they were doing it).  If not for a class action, they would have continued doing it.  Those lawsuits often are aimed at stopping such practices as opposed to making whole those victimized by those practices.  Yes, typically  the lawyers who bring those actions are the ones who get compensated (of course, if the class action is not successful - and some do not even get certified as a class action - the lawyers  get nothing). It can be a mixed bag.

ScottFromWyoming wrote:


Um...who exactly "vets" a 40 year old organization?

 kurtster wrote:
 

We can have a battle of un-vetted 501(c)3s!

Dear EWG, This Is Why Real Scientists Think Poorly of You

 Lazy8 wrote: 
Yeah, I know how class action lawsuits work.  Been a participant in a few, like one against WalMart as a former employee.  I guess people think I'm really, really stupid, not just plain stupid.

Awhile ago I posted about glyphosate actually being found in food contrary to claims by Monsanto.  Now we have another study.  Not junk science ...

Roundup for Breakfast? Weed Killer in Landmark Cancer Verdict Found in Kids’ Cereals, Other Oat-Based Foods

 

 Lazy8 wrote: 
Everyone has their thing. Me? Neurotoxins like many other herbicides creep me out much more than carcinogens, and the science on roundup is dubious, although I haven't researched it thoroughly. I don't think it is a significant issue unless you are working with it professionally and not taking normal precautions for working with chemicals.

If I understand correctly, once something is a class action, the lawyers get paid one way or another. That has a few perverse outcomes like it is to their advantage to settle quickly even if it doesn't gain their clients much of anything. On the other hand, there doesn't seem to be a better alternative.

I also recently learned another perverse outcome. Since class action is so rewarding, it can be hard to find a lawyer to take on a suit for an individual client. I talked with a nice lawyer who gave me a little free advice, but explained that that sort of thing was built into their practice because they never knew what might lead to something lucrative.

kurtster wrote:

He's just explaining how class-action lawsuits work. When a company settles a suit the lawyers negotiate what works for them.

They get a cut of some huge headline-grabbing figure. Since few companies have massive piles of cash sitting around they negotiate a settlement in kind: instead of paying plaintiffs totally in cash they alot at least part of the settlement as some kind of cash equivalent, like coupons good for a discount on one of their products. Most of those will never get redeemed, so in the end they pay far less than the astronomical figure that makes the news.

The lawyers, of course, get their cut in cash.

When you're presented with the settlement terms it's take it or sue them yourselves. Very few people have the patience/resources to pursue a suit like that on their own so they usually take the settlement; something, however ill-gotten, is better than nothing.

You're welcome.

 islander wrote: 
Glad you think cancer is funny.

 kurtster wrote:
 

You'll get a coupon for roundup.

 Lazy8 wrote: 
Say what you want.  I did finally get a phone number for joining the lawsuit.  I'm willing to hear what they have to say to me.

kurtster wrote:

Yeah, the floodgates may open soon. One junk science verdict like this and the bottom-feeders come out of the woodwork, where the sheer volume of cases may compel the defendant to settle and make a swarm of lawyers rich.

And this is junk science, on par with the silicone breast implant case. American civil justice is horribly warped; even if this case is tossed out on appeal there will be blood in the water. A few years from now, after a few more yachts have been bought and the price of herbicides goes up and the reputations of honest people have been trashed the scientific consensus will re-emerge.

But nobody will give the money back.

 SeriousLee wrote: 
Its about time.  I've been following this case as an NHL survivor.  So much has come out recently.  It was denied that Roundup could even enter the food chain in measurable amounts.  We now know that to be untrue.  Many other things as well.  Its now being used to dry unharvested crops.  Peer review articles have been found to be written and published under very dubious circumstances.  This is the tip of the ice berg.

Jurors give $289 million to a man they say got cancer from Monsanto's Roundup weedkiller

Finally ...
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Weedkiller found in granola and crackers, internal FDA emails show
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The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been testing food samples for residues of glyphosate, the active ingredient in hundreds of widely used herbicide products, for two years, but has not yet released any official results.

But the internal documents obtained by the Guardian show the FDA has had trouble finding any food that does not carry traces of the pesticide.
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and no, I did not hear about this on Fox ...

Bayer, Monsanto Sign Merger Agreement Worth $66B, Now the Tough Part: Regulators

How One GMO Nearly Took Down the Planet