Germany's Bayer AG says it expects to take a €2.5bn ($2.8bn; £2.2bn) hit from a slower demand for its glyphosate-based products, including the controversial weedkiller Roundup. The announcement came as the company lowered its outlook for the year. In all, it has set aside over $15bn (£11.7bn) to settle lawsuits alleging its herbicides are linked to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and other cancers. Bayer has denied wrongdoing but said the payouts would end "uncertainty". The company said it expected a net loss of €2bn in the three months to the end of June. Bayer said this was mainly due "a significant further decline in sales of glyphosate-based products." The firm also forecast that its pre-tax profits could fall to as low as €11.3bn this year, compared to the €13.5bn it reported in 2022. A Bayer spokesman said that more glyphosate-based products had entered the market following the pandemic, resulting in a lower demand for the firm's weedkillers. BBC News

 

 

Dr Chadi Nabhan is a hematologist and medical oncologist, is the author of a new book about Roundup, “Toxic Exposure: The True Story Behind the Monsanto Trials and the Search for Justice”. In the book, the doctor details his experiences as an expert witness tasked with showing how Monsanto, the original manufacturer of the weedkiller Roundup, was liable in Roundup lawsuits in which users of the product contracted non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Nabhan shares what he saw the plaintiffs go through, how Monsanto’s public relations team attempted to push aside the 2015 revelation by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) deeming glyphosate a dangerous carcinogen, and even potential ways the Environmental Protection Agency was swayed to not agree with that IARC decision. He also details for the reader how he worked to show the manufacturer’s liability in cancer cases. Legal Examiner

 

 

Much of the world debates GMOs purely in terms of human health and the environment. But in Mexico, it’s also about cuisine, culture, and heritage. In February 2023, Mexican President López Obrador issued a new decree which eliminated the previous January 2024 deadline to ban GM corn for livestock feed (imports will still be banned for human consumption). Without a set date for the complete substitution of US GM corn imports, the new rule simply says Mexican authorities will carry out “the gradual substitution” of GM feed. Still, the US was not satisfied with this watered-down version of the decree and in March requested formal trade consultations, which have since failed. “We weren’t satisfied with the new mandate because for us, corn for industrial use and livestock fodder is still corn for human consumption,” said María Leticia López, director of the Asociación Nacional de Empresas Comercializadoras de Productores del Campo (ANEC), a farmers’ organisation. Though corn in the US is mostly used for livestock production and industrial use, she continued, corn is not a commodity in Mexico. That’s the fundamental difference: “We eat corn and Mexico is obligated to preserve the health of its population.” Ambrook Research

 

 

Internal communications finding that virologists did not believe the conclusions they published in a prestigious journal have triggered scientists to circulate a petition calling for Nature Medicine to retract the influential “Proximal Origins” paper that denied the possibility of a lab accident in Wuhan, China, and misled the public during the pandemic’s first crucial years. Within days, the petition garnered over 1,300 signatures and set the hashtag #RetractProximalOrigins trending on Twitter. The torrent of virologists’ internal communications became public following a House hearing earlier this month, during which Scripps Research’s Kristian Andersen submitted false testimony about the Nature Medicine paper. Last week, The Intercept published newly revealed documents finding that Andersen and his co-author, Robert “Bob” Garry of Tulane University, both lied to Congress during the House hearing about whether they had pending federal grants controlled by Anthony Fauci that could have been used as to influence them. The Disinformation Chronicle

 

We hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible by readers’ donations. Please support our work with a one-off or regular donation. Thank you!