Verdicts of three California juries nixed

Federal judge sides with Monsanto, blocks cancer-warning labels from most widely used weed-killer

Ignoring the verdicts of three California juries, a federal judge ruled yesterday that the state can’t require a warning label on Roundup.

U.S. District Judge William Shubb

U.S. District Judge William Shubb, according to an Associated Press story, issued a permanent injunction against the labeling of the world’s most widely used weed-killer — despite plaintiffs in the three cases having won nearly $300 million after the juries agreed that glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup, Monsanto’s herbicide, causes non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and other blood cancers.

The AP cited a contrary quote by Shubb in the San Francisco Chronicle to the effect that “the great weight of evidence indicates that glyphosate is not known to cause cancer.”

The U.S. District judge noted that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and similar agencies in Europe “haven’t found a connection between the chemical and cancer.”

The judge contended, according to the AP, that “the state couldn’t meet a legal standard” for requiring the labeling — in effect overturning California’s warning requisite on cancer-causing products under its Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act that was approved in 1986 by voters. 

California had wanted the labels based on a 2016 finding by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, an arm of the World Health Organization, that glyphosate "was probably a cause of cancer in humans.”

Monsanto, which is now owned by Bayer AG, a German chemical and pharmaceutical giant, sued to overturn that position and, in 2018, Shubb temporarily blocked the labeling. In his latest ruling, the judge suggested that the state can force a company to change its label only if the statement is purely factual and non-controversial — itself apparently a controversial posture.

The monster agribusiness, meanwhile, has appealed the verdicts in all three cases.

It had been facing some 125,000 lawsuits in spite of contending Roundup is safe. But of those cases — reports a story on the EcoWatch website that features “environmental news for a healthier planet and life” — Bayer “made a verbal agreement to settle 50,000 to 85,000 cases in May, awarding plaintiffs anywhere from a few thousand dollars to a few million, according to Fortune” magazine.

The reason for those settlements, EcoWatch speculated, is “the spate of lawsuits and their legal fees [that] made the company lose 40 percent of its value.”

Lawyers for the plaintiffs in those instances, that article continues, “argued that the EPA’s insistence that Roundup does not cause cancer is spurious since there was evidence the company had unduly influenced the federal agency and had ‘ghost-written’ purported research studies on the product’s safety.” 

The story also noted that the verdicts in the three cases with huge settlements, all of which are being appealed by Monsanto, came after the plaintiffs alleged that “Bayer manipulated studies and deceived the scientific community to make glyphosate seem safer than it actually is, according to Reuters.”

More information about lawsuits pertaining to products that may cause disease can be found in “Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner’s breast cancer,” a VitalityPress book that I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers.

Quashing negative emotions may help healing

New Taiwan study finds that music might lessen pain, fatigue, appetite problems of breast cancer patients

Listening to music at home may reduce breast cancer patients' pain and fatigue.

At least in the short run.

That activity, according to a recent story by Carolyn Crist in Reuters Health, can also "ease symptoms like loss of appetite and difficulty concentrating."

Research in Taiwan, the article continues, found that breast cancer patients "assigned to 30 minutes of music listening five times a week had 'noticeably' reduced side effects of cancer and its treatment over 24 weeks."

A report on the study appeared in the European Journal of Cancer Care. 

Why did the music help?

Crist's piece says it aided patients physical and psychological well being "because it distanced them from negative thoughts about cancer."

Professor Kue-Ru Chou

Kuel-Ru Chou, professor in the School of Nursing at Taipei Medical University, senior author of the study that looked at 60 patients, notes that "music therapy is convenient, does not involve invasive procedures, and can easily be used by people in the comfort of their homes."

Home-based "music interventions," she continued in an email to Reuters Health, "can also be used with no cost." 

The study offered patients a choice of classical, pop, Taiwanese and religious music. 

A control group could only select from environmental sounds, which, Crist's story says, "research has shown does little to reduce pain or symptoms"

There is a caveat about the benefits of music, however.

Based on the study's findings, Crist writes, "music therapy may not relieve long-term physical and mental fatigue."

The scribe also explains that the study's authors speculate "because listening to music promotes endorphins, dopamine and serotonin in the brain, the chemicals may spark joy and positive emotions that distract patients from the negative emotions."

In addition, the authors maintain, "music could affect functions of the cardiovascular, respiratory, muscular, skeletal, nervous and metabolic systems as well, relieving muscle tension and pain."

Healing benefits of other things, such as humor, are addressed in "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book that I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers.