Two House of Lords Committees have published highly critical reports on the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill that is currently going through the UK Parliament. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and the Constitution Committee both voice concern about the excessive powers that the bill confers on ministers to do whatever they want without the scrutiny of Parliament – powers that a legal briefing called "Henry VIII powers", after that monarch's style of ruling by proclamation. GMWatch

 

 

It's another victory against Monsanto, but it tastes bittersweet. In a ruling of 7 November, a court in Lyon, France condemned the German agrochemical giant Bayer – which bought Monsanto in 2018 – to pay the farmer Paul François, who was poisoned by inhaling fumes from the the company's Lasso herbicide, the sum of 11,135 euros. "Certainly, for the first time, French justice has condemned a manufacturer of pesticides for having poisoned a farmer, but 11,135 euros for fifteen years of life put on hold, nights without sleep, I would perhaps have done better to use this time to play the Lotto!" said François. In 2012, the courts recognised that Monsanto was "responsible for the damage" suffered by François and sentenced the firm to "compensate" the farmer. But amid appeals from Monsanto and then Bayer, it has taken 10 years to resolve the amount of compensation. "It is satisfying insofar as this judgment is the sixth court decision to recognise the responsibility of Monsanto," commented François Lafforgue, the lawyer who has represented François for fifteen years. "But the amount of compensation is not at all commensurate with the damage suffered." To compensate for physical and moral suffering and professional losses related to his inability to work normally, Paul François claimed a little over 1 million euros from Bayer. However, the Lyon court considered that if François was indeed the victim of acute intoxication in 2004 with post-traumatic stress, the chronic disorders he has suffered cannot be attributed to the inhalation of Lasso. Moreover, the judges deducted the indemnities paid by the insurance companies and evaluated at 142,000 euros, to arrive at a compensation amount of 11,135 euros. Le Monde (paywalled French language article)

 

 

A new report, Merchants of Poison: How Monsanto Sold the World on a Toxic Pesticide, by Stacy Malkan, with Kendra Klein, PhD and Anna Lappé, documents pesticide industry disinformation, corrupted science, and manufactured doubt about glyphosate. The analysis draws from thousands of pages of internal corporate documents released during lawsuits brought by farmers, groundskeepers, and everyday gardeners suing Monsanto over allegations that exposure to Roundup caused them to develop cancer; as well as documents obtained through public records requests in a years-long investigation by US Right to Know, a public interest research group. The authors report on five tactics the Monsanto-led product-defence campaign used to defend glyphosate, and why this matters for public health. Co-author Kendra Klein has published an article about the report here. US Right to Know

 

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