Friday, May 1, 2020

Jeffrey Smith to Bayer/Monsanto, with Video Link

For our "conservative" readership who may think, "Salsa Labs projects generally range from 'liberal' to 'total left-wingnut,' such that that alone should discredit the Institute for Responsible Technology"...what can I say? The pieces fit. Gene splicing, rightly though right-wingers distrust it, and hubristic though I agree that it is, did not make me or my cats sick at first; BT corn's actual ecological effect was to breed hardier caterpillars. Glyphosate, and E. Coli corn (and soy) engineered to soak up glyphosate, and also fruits, vegetables, nuts, and grains that had glyphosate sprayed directly on the "food" to make mechanical harvesting easier, did make me sick. These abominations, which came on the market in 2009 so cannot be blamed on the Trump Administration, have been harming almost everyone this web site knows, albeit in different ways. There is no politics about the scientific facts:  

Glyphosate is not a "safe pesticide." There are no "safe pesticides," and glyphosate harms every living thing whether it has two, four, six, eight, or no legs...in a bewildering variety of ways that remain remarkably constant across species.

GLYPHOSATE IS WORSE THAN CORONAVIRUS--slower, more painful, but no less deadly!

Trump's indulgence toward Bayer does show personal economic involvement...not with Bayer so much as with a smaller chemical company that also sells a glyphosate-based "herbicide" formula. While the focus has been on Bayer because that corporation is so huge and so rich, and so knowingly bought the responsibility for so much corporate irresponsibility, fear it not, Sanofi, and Syngenta, and Dow and Dupont and all the others out there...Glyphosate will destroy all who touch it. If corporations do manage to evade responsibility for the harm it's done under due legal process, they will literally call out all the powers of H...(I am not talking about a tourist town in Michigan, here.) Blood-throwing worked for the homosexual lobby and, if we have to stoop to that, glyphosate victims have plenty of ammunition.

Glyphosate Awareness has observed that politicians on both sides have been equally useless. The closest thing we have to elected officials who are willing to stand up to Bayer have been Bernie Sanders, who won an election in California on personal charm but would be too old to be a viable presidential candidate even if his ideas weren't outdated, and Robert F. Kennedy (junior), who deserves to be elected on the basis of his righteous work but has, so far, merely been appointed. Neither Democrats nor Republicans, nor Libertarians, nor even Greens, have climbed out of the beds Bayer has smeared with its (multiple) loathsome diseases. But please, Gentle Readers--the handful of you who are still finding chances to read things online while your schools and offices are closed for quarantine--share this friendly notice with any elected officials you know: Glyphosate can destroy their careers too. They need to reject it and denounce it now. If they have invested in companies that were raking in profits from glyphosate (or other poisons), they need to use their stockholder leverage to steer those companies as far from glyphosate (and from the whole concept of spraying "herbicides") as it's possible to get.

Jeffrey Smith is a political lifeform like all the rest of us, but there's no partisan politics about the press release he's shared this morning. It's facts. So this web site is sharing it, and we'll even try to throw in a link to his video. (Some of you may have watched his full-length documentary movie...the video is shorter.)

"
Press Release
Bayer Ignores Investigator’s Warning at AGM: 
“Change Course or Face Possible Bankruptcy”
Bonn, Germany, 29 April— For Bayer’s Annual General Meeting yesterday, Monsanto investigator Jeffrey Smith predicted that Bayer will face possible bankruptcy from a new wave of lawsuits linking Roundup herbicide to numerous diseases, and that the current expected payout of up to $12 billion to more than 50,000 plaintiffs with Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) is only the beginning. In questions submitted at Bayer’s AGM and elaborated in a short video and online presentations, Smith, the founder of the Institute for Responsible Technology, said Roundup is now implicated in several other cancers and more than 2 dozen diseases. “The total number of people suffering from these conditions is staggering,” wrote Smith, “thousands of times more than those currently represented. If even a tiny percentage were to receive a settlement, the award could easily bankrupt Bayer.”
In 2019, Bayer shareholders gave their leadership an unprecedented Vote of No Confidence due to its ill-fated purchase of Monsanto, the maker of Roundup. Massive jury awards in just three trials by four plaintiffs had previously caused Bayer’s stock price to plummet by more than 35% and forced its chairman to step down yesterday. Smith, who has been exposing Monsanto’s dark side in books, movies, and presentations in 45 countries for 24 years, had written an open letter to Bayer investors in 2016, urging them to not to purchase Monsanto. He accurately listed Roundup’s classification as a “Probable Human Carcinogen” as one of the significant liabilities that could hurt Bayer.
At this week’s online side event organized by Coordination against BAYER-Dangers (CBG), Smith explained research that demonstrates how Roundup damages several physiological systems and can therefore cause or exacerbate numerous chronic conditions. In his AGM submittal, he described the threat and outlined a way forward that could protect the company and the public. If the AGM were held in-person, Smith would have been given time to read his statement and could have alerted shareholders to the new dangers. But for this year’s online conference, Bayer received and edited written submissions. They chose not to share Smith’s prediction or proposed way forward. Bayer did restate their claim that Roundup is not harmful.

Bayer Can Take Steps to Protect from Bankruptcy

Based on his analysis of the Roundup trials, which included hours of interviews with attorneys and jurors, Smith says “Two categories of evidence drove the juries’ judgements and large punitive awards, Monsanto’s malicious behavior and the weight of the science. Unless Bayer addresses both, they will continue to lose.”
 

1. Full Disclosure Required

In his AGM submittal, Smith wrote: “Monsanto’s history was fraught with coverups, bullying, lies, and manipulation. . . Juries were furious with Monsanto’s behavior, and with Bayer for keeping the evidence hidden.”
To remedy this, he asked Bayer directors, “Are you willing to make public all evidence on Roundup and Monsanto’s bad behavior, including every internal study and related document on safety, and every instance where Monsanto manipulated, colluded, attacked, and covered up? By exposing and condemning Monsanto’s prior behaviors, you will distance yourself and claim the higher ground.”

2. Independent Research, Not Corporate Fraud

Smith wrote, “The science presented on behalf of Monsanto was thin and superficial at best, and more often fraudulent. Juries were angry at Monsanto for not doing the meaningful tests that could demonstrate safety and protect consumers. At the same time, jurors were given ample data from independent studies verifying the link to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.”
Although Smith believes there is now ample evidence to remove Roundup from the market, he says that if the company refuses to do so, Bayer should “fully fund independent comprehensive intergenerational studies on the full Roundup formulation, looking for links to disease?” He said in his submission, “If the studies shows safety, then you have the data to fend off lawsuits. If the studies show otherwise, you must immediately remove Roundup.”
Bayer did not share these statements and questions with investors.
Smith says, “We hoped that Bayer would finally become the responsible corporate citizen it claims to be, but instead it has chosen to continue in the tradition of Monsanto. Bayer ignores science, hides evidence from its shareholders and the public, and continues to expose the population to its very dangerous herbicide Roundup.”
"

This link should take you to the video.

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