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Does The Herbicide RoundUp® Cause Cancer?

February 18, 2019 in In The News

Forbes | By Steven Salzberg

(Quick answer: probably not. See my update at the bottom of this post.)

For many years, environmental activists have been concerned about the herbicide glyphosate, which is the main ingredient in RoundUp®, the world’s most widely-used weed killer. Since 1996, global usage of glyphosate has increased 15-fold, in part due to the widespread cultivation of “RoundUp Ready” crops, which are genetically modified to be resistant to RoundUp®. This allows farmers to use the herbicide freely, killing undesirable weeds without harming their crops.

RoundUp®’s manufacturer, Monsanto, has long claimed that glyphosate is safe, and they point to hundreds of studies that support their argument.

Click here to read more

Bayer today provided an update on its five-point plan to address future Roundup™ litigation risk after its May 27th decision to withdraw from the national class process. The company is now in more control of important aspects of the risk mitigation process and has sketched out two basic scenarios going forward to provide a path to closure of this litigation. The first scenario is based on obtaining a favorable decision by the United States Supreme Court on a cross-cutting issue like federal preemption which would effectively and largely end the U.S. Roundup™ litigation. The second scenario assumes that the Supreme Court either declines to hear the Hardeman case or issues a ruling in favor of plaintiff – in that case the company would activate its own claims administration program.

Read about the five-point plan here.