Bayer Makes Bid for “Trust” Amid Third Monsanto Cancer Trial

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Bayer AG, which bought Monsanto last summer, said Monday that it was making scientific studies available for public scrutiny in an effort to counter growing concerns about the safety of Monsanto’s flagship glyphosate-based herbicide products.

“Transparency is a catalyst for trust, so more transparency is a good thing for consumers, policymakers and businesses,  Liam Condon, president of Bayer’s crop science division, said in a statement. Safety, he said, is the company’s top priority.

The comments come as pressure is mounting on Bayer management as roughly 11,000 people are suing Monsanto alleging glyphosate-based herbicides such as Roundup cause non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and Monsanto has hidden the risks and manipulated the scientific record. The first Roundup cancer trial resulted in a jury verdict of $289 million in damages against Monsanto, though a judge later lowered that to $78 million. The second such trial ended last month with a jury verdict of $80.2 million against Monsanto. The third trial is now underway.

Last week U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria told Bayer attorneys and plaintiffs’ attorneys that he would like the parties to enter into mediation to discuss a possible settlement. He vacated a fourth trial set to begin in May.

Monsanto and Bayer deny the allegations and say the weight of science supports the safety of glyphosate herbicides. They also deny claims that company scientists ghost-wrote seemingly independent scientific papers and otherwise manipulated the scientific record.

“By making our detailed scientific safety data available, we encourage anyone interested to see for themselves how comprehensive our approach to safety is. We embrace the opportunity to engage in dialogue so we can build more trust in sound science,” said Condon.

The company said it was providing access to 107 Bayer-owned glyphosate safety study reports that were submitted to the European Food Safety Authority as part of the substance authorization process in the European Union. The studies are accessible on Bayer’s  transparency platform.

The news from Bayer comes ahead of an April 26 shareholders meeting in which some investors are calling for the head of Bayer CEO Werner Baumann for leading the company into the Monsanto acquisition. Monsanto’s top management walked away with millions of dollars in exit packages just before the first Roundup cancer trial, leaving Bayer holding the bag for the litigation losses and the bad publicity. Since last summer, the company has seen an exodus of customers as retailers, cities, school districts and others say they are backing away from the Monsanto herbicides.

As Bayer focuses on its messaging outside the court room, epidemiologist Beate Ritz,  professor at the University of California Los Angeles School of Public Health, is due to take the stand today in Pilliod v. Monsanto,   the third Roundup cancer trial. Ritz has testified in the two prior trials that her analysis of several scientific studies shows that  there is a “credible link” between glyphosate-based herbicides such as Monsanto’s Roundup and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

The current case was brought by Alva and Alberta Pilliod, a married couple who both have non-Hodgkin lymphoma they allege is due to years of Roundup use.

Following Ritz will be testimony from Dennis Weisenburger, a pathologist specializing in studying the causes of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Weisenburger testified in the Edwin Hardeman v. Monsanto trial that Roundup is a “substantial cause” of cancer in people who are exposed.

Meanwhile, plaintiffs’ attorneys continue to worry about what they believe to be “geofencing” by Monsanto.    Geofencing is a popular advertising technique that delivers specific messaging/content to anyone within a specific geographic area designated by the company or group paying for the ad. The area can be very small, a mile radius around a specific address, for instance.  Anyone within that designated area using an app on a smart phone – such as a weather app or a game – would then be delivered the ad. Targeted individuals don’t have to be searching for information; it just appears on their smart phone.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys raised the issue in the Hardeman case, and had concerns that Monsanto was pushing messaging to jurors through geofencing in the first Roundup cancer trial, which was brought by groundskeeper Dewayne “Lee” Johnson.

In the Pilliod case, the issue was discussed Thursday in court as the plaintiffs attorneys sought a judicial order to prohibit Monsanto from the tactic, but the judge was skeptical and declined to issue such an order.

Here is part of the exchange. All can be seen in the trial transcript. 

PLAINTIFFS’ ATTORNEY BRENT WISNER:  Your Honor, I think there’s one — and I get your point. I think just to clarify one procedural factual thing. Right? If I were to walk over to a juror personally and say to you, “Hey, Juror Number 3, Monsanto’s stuff causes cancer and all these studies show it,” I mean, that would be a mistrial. Instantaneously. That’s jury tampering. Right? Now if they do that same thing — if I did the same thing by targeting every person’s phone in this courtroom or every single person’s phone in this courthouse and pushing that information, that same message to them on their phone — and what happens is -­  I don’t know if you use your phone for this kind of purposes, but, for example, when I look at my ESPN app and I’m looking at the scores for the UCLA water polo team, or whatever, you know, there’s little ads that pop up.

THE COURT: Sure.

MR. WISNER: And those ads are saying “Federal judge says Roundup is safe.” That’s the kind of stuff
we’re seeing. We saw this happening with quite intensity in the Johnson trial. Numerous jurors during voir dire mentioned that they were having these things pushed on them as soon as they walked in the building. And so whether or not Monsanto is or is not doing that, I think that if they are, that should be
prohibited. That’s not really a point of First Amendment. That is now clearly targeting people that
they know they can’t speak to.

THE COURT: And you’re asking me to assign a subjective intent that I don’t know exists and it’s
still prior restraint. I mean, technology has taken us places probably we never thought it would go… I guess if I were picking sides, I might believe that. But I can’t pick sides.

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