Katherine's Blog
U.S. food, farming, environmental and climate policies are working just fine for giant corporations and their shareholders.
But these policies aren’t working for family farmers. And they sure as heck aren’t working for you.
Change won’t come from the top. It will have to come from people like you. The best place to start? In your own community, by building support for a Green New Deal (GND).
Can you attend or host a Green New Deal Town Hall in your community? Or if you live in one of these cities, can you participate in the Green New Deal Tour?
While much of the nation was tuned into the Michael Cohen drama in Washington, D.C. this week, another drama was playing out in a San Francisco courtroom.
On February 25, a jury in San Francisco Federal Court began hearing the case of Edwin Hardeman vs. Monsanto. Hardeman alleges that Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller caused his non-Hodgkin lymphoma cancer.
Hardeman’s is the second case involving someone who developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma after using Roundup. His case follows the August 10, 2018, $289-million judgment (later reduced to $78 million) awarded to DeWayne “Lee” Johnson, a former school groundskeeper who also sued Monsanto for causing his non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Monsanto’s appeal of the $78-million judgment is still pending.
There are more than 9,000 claims pending against Monsanto in state courts, about 620 awaiting trial in federal court. Reuters reported in November that Hardeman’s case was selected as “a so-called bellwether, or test trial, frequently used in U.S. product liability mass litigation to help both sides gauge the range of damages and define settlement options.”
For four years, Milkhouse Dairy Farm and Creamery in Monmouth, Maine, supplied grass-fed organic milk to Horizon.
That was until Horizon told the farm’s owners, Caitlin Frame and Andy Smith, their contract would end in six months. Horizon said it was because Milkhouse was selling some of its milk direct to consumers and retail stores, and also using some of it to make and sell yogurt.
Horizon (owned by international food conglomerate, Danone) said it didn’t like that the farm was “diverting” some of its supply, instead of selling exclusively to Horizon.
Chlorpyrifos, manufactured by DowDuPont, is a neurotoxic organophosphate pesticide that’s been linked to severe birth defects, brain damage and mental disorders in children.
Yet despite these known risks, and despite new evidence suggesting that Dow knew for decades how toxic chlorpyrifos is to children, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) still allows chlorpyrifos to be sprayed on more than 50 fruits, vegetables and nuts, including strawberries, almonds, oranges, broccoli and apples.
If the EPA won’t do its job, it’s time for Congress to act.
In a few weeks, Monsanto will go on trial again. And when it does, the pesticide-maker won’t be able to suppress evidence that the company ghostwrote scientific studies and otherwise tried to influence scientists and regulators in an attempt to hide the potential health risks of its flagship product, Roundup weedkiller.
This week, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria, the federal judge in San Francisco overseeing 620 cases involving Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller and cancer victims, ruled that the evidence could be introduced in the upcoming trial. According to a Reuters report, Chhabria said the documents were “super relevant.”
Chhabria’s ruling almost guarantees that the documents in question will play a role when, on February 25, a jury in San Francisco Federal Court, begins hearing the case of Edwin Hardeman vs. Monsanto. Hardeman alleges that Roundup caused his non-Hodgkin lymphoma cancer.
Dewayne Johnson never wanted to be a celebrity acting out his life on an international stage. He’d much rather be a healthy man, going to work, taking care of his family, making a modest-but-steady living.
In a recent interview with Time magazine, the former school groundskeeper said:
“I’ve never really been a fan of attention or fanfare. And now it seems like that’s taken over my life. I get requests for media interviews from all over the world, and people ask me to come to their events and speak, and I’ve had people telling me they want to buy my 'life rights' to try to get movie deals . . . It’s crazy.”
Crazy, maybe. But Johnson, who recently won a $289-million judgment (later reduced to $78 million) against Monsanto (now Bayer) for manufacturing a product he says (and the jury agreed) caused his terminal cancer—and hiding evidence of that product’s lethal toxicity—has perhaps done more than any one single person to shine a spotlight on how bad Roundup weedkiller is. And how deceitful Monsanto is.
When the judge in the Monsanto Roundup trial signaled she might overturn the jury’s verdict, we expected the worst.
In the end, Judge Suzanne Bolanos slashed the amount of money the jury said Monsanto should pay its victim, Dewayne “Lee” Johnson, from $289 million to $78 million.
That may not sound like much of a win, but there was good news in her decision: The jury’s verdict was upheld.
What Monsanto really wanted was for Bolanos to throw out the jury’s unanimous decision that Monsanto’s wildly profitable flagship weedkiller caused Johnson’s cancer, and that Monsanto knew all along that Roundup is a carcinogen.
That didn’t happen. That was good news for everyone who’s ever fought to get Roundup off the market, and for everyone who’s ever wanted Monsanto to be held accountable for its crimes.
The world’s largest meat packer, JBS Tolleson, is recalling nearly 7 million pounds of beef after an investigation identified JBS as the common supplier of ground beef products sold to people who developed Salmonella Newport, a disease that causes fever and diarrhea, weakness, dyspnea and, potentially, sudden death.
As of October 4, 57 people in 16 states had been sickened by JBS beef.
If that’s not enough to make you swear off industrial factory farm beef, here’s more food for thought: There’s a good chance the JBS beef was contaminated because it contained a combination of cattle raised for beef, and dairy cows sent off for slaughter because they were too sick to produce milk.
It’s one of the industrial food industry’s biggest marketing scams—labeling a product “natural” or “all-natural” or “100% natural” in order to sell more product, despite knowing full well that the product contains ingredients that consumers would reasonably conclude are not natural.
We call it the “Myth of Natural.”
This week, we settled a lawsuit with General Mills.
According to the joint statement we issued with our co-plaintiffs, Beyond Pesticides and Moms Across America:
At a time specified by the agreement, packaging for General Mills Nature Valley Granola bars will no longer bear the term “100% Natural Whole Grain Oats.”
Agreements like the one with General Mills are just the first step. We still have to push for a long-term solution to the problem of using the word "natural" in ways that mislead consumers.
“If you know you’re dying, it gives you that extra push. You can’t just die for nothing.”
Those words were spoken by Dewayne “Lee” Johnson in a recent TV interview with CBS News. Johnson was interviewed after a jury in San Francisco found that Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller caused his cancer.
Until he became too sick to work, Johnson was a school groundskeeper.
His job required him to spray Roundup on school properties, including on playgrounds.
According to U.S. PIRG, 26 million pounds of Roundup are sprayed on public parks, schoolgrounds, playgrounds and gardens every year.
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