Page 91 - Summer 2019 Journal

This is the third jury in a row to award punitive damages against Monsanto/Bayer, and each case brings new developments.
In August 2018, the first jury to hear such claims in another case awarded almost three hundred million dollars, which was reduced to seventy-eight million dollars on appeal. The jury was allowed to hear information on Monsanto’s alleged cover-up at the same time that it was considering whether or not Roundup had caused the plaintiff’s cancer. That jury found Monsanto failed to warn the plaintiff of Roundup’s health hazards and “acted with malice or oppression.”
The second case then broke new ground, because the judge refused to allow the plaintiff’s attorneys even to discuss Monsanto’s alleged in- fluence on research and regulations during the hearings—removing that potential source of bias. Yet the second jury still found that glyphosate had more likely than not caused the plaintiff’s cancer. And once the second trial reached the stage of deciding on damages, the judge, who had previ- ously favored Monsanto in his pre-trial orders, made this observation: “Although the evidence that Roundup causes cancer is quite equivocal,
there is strong evidence from which a jury could conclude that Monsanto does not particularly care whether its product is in fact giving people cancer, focusing instead on manipulating public opinion and undermining anyone who raises genuine and legitimate concerns about the is- sue.” The jury ultimately ordered Bayer to pay eighty-one million dollars in damages in that case.
Bayer’s shareholders are facing an ugly future, with over eleven thousand more cases waiting to go to trial with claims related to Roundup.
CONSUMERS LOSE ON GMO LABELING But while the GMO industry is suffering some serious blows in the courtroom, it still
STATE HIGHLIGHTS ON FOOD FREEDOM
North Dakota’s Food Freedom Act, passed just two years ago, narrowly survived a legislative challenge this year. The 2017 Food Freedom Act allows the unregulated sale of all foods directly from producer to consumer except meat and raw dairy. The state health department pushed a bill, SB 2269, that would have banned low-acid canned foods and mandated that “potentially hazardous foods” be sold frozen. The sponsor of the bill attempted to portray it as simply providing consistency and conformity across the state, without acknowledging that it reversed significant portions of the 2017 law. Fortunately, SB 2269 ultimately died when the House voted against accepting the conference committee ver- sion (65 nays, 25 yeas).
At the same time, Utah’s legislature expanded food freedom a bit this year with two bills. HB 256 exempts farmers with fewer than 3,000 laying hens from regulation when selling directly to consumers. These small producers can also sell eggs to restaurants without having to grade them, although the agriculture department can issue rules governing the temperature, cleaning and sanitization of such eggs. In addition, HB 412 allows the sale of meat from “nonamenable” species that are processed at a custom slaughterhouse, without an inspector present. “Nonamenable” species are those that are not included in the definition of amenable (i.e. cattle, sheep, goats, swine, or domesticated poultry), when do- mestically raised; it includes domesticated elk, bison, game birds and rabbits.
The Texas Legislature was very active on the issue of local food regulations this year, passing five bills that support local food producers. The most high-profile was an expansion of the existing cottage food law; the new law, SB 572, allows the sale of any nonpotentially hazardous food at any location in the state (so long as direct to consumer), and added pickled fruits and vegetables, acidified canned foods, frozen fruits and vegetables, and fermented vegetables to the allowed list. Another bill, HB 410, removed the current onerous requirements for an expensive facility for those farmers processing 1,000 poultry or 500 rabbits or fewer per year on their own farms. A third bill, SB 932, capped the fees that can be charged by local health departments for farmers and farmers market vendors; some local jurisdictions, particularly the larger cities, had been charging fees as high as $300, $600 or even $2,000 per year per market for some farmers market vendors, but will now be limited to no more than $100 per year per jurisdiction. Fourth, HB 1694 completely abolished the permit requirement for providing samples of food at farmers markets. Finally, HB 2107 requires local health depart- ments to respond to questions by food producers as to what they have to do legally—and if the producer complies, an inspector cannot later come up with a different interpretation and fine the producer, as happens all too often.
And still ongoing, the Maine Legislature is considering a constitutional resolution on the right to food. LD 795 states that “All individuals have a natural, inherent and unalienable right to food, including the right to acquire, produce, pro- cess, prepare, preserve and consume the food of their own choosing by hunting, gathering, foraging, farming, fishing, gardening and saving and exchanging seeds or by barter, trade or purchase from sources of their own choosing, for their nourishment, sustenance, bodily health and well-being...; furthermore, all individuals have a fundamental right to be free from hunger, malnutrition, starvation and the endangerment of life from the scarcity of or lack of access to nourishing food.” If approved by the Legislature, LD 795 will be voted on by the citizens of the state.
SUMMER 2019 Wise Traditions
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