Farm Bureau urges court to reverse glyphosate ruling

An appeals court should reverse a verdict finding the herbicide glyphosate responsible for a Northern California man's illness, according to the California Farm Bureau Federation, because the verdict was based on incomplete information about the material's alleged link to cancer.

CFBF filed a "friend of the court" brief last week with the California 1st District Court of Appeals, in the case known as Johnson vs. Monsanto. In that case, a San Francisco jury awarded former school groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson $289 million in damages last year, after determining glyphosate caused his non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The trial judge later reduced the award to $78 million.

Both parties are now appealing—Monsanto seeking to overturn the verdict and Johnson seeking the original $289 million award.

CFBF, in its brief, supported Monsanto and said the trial court decision could lead to regulatory impacts that would impair Farm Bureau members' ability to use glyphosate for weed control, even though the herbicide has been legally registered by both federal and state regulatory agencies.

"Farmers and ranchers should be allowed to rely upon and use federal and state approved crop protection tools and not be subject to uncertainty and potential liability due to conflicting scientific reports put forth by non-regulatory bodies," the Farm Bureau brief said.

Specifically, CFBF said, the trial court allowed the jury to consider a determination by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a United Nations agency, which "threatens to derail longstanding pesticide registration regulatory processes and farmers and ranchers' ability to rely upon a legally approved pesticide label when using crop protection tools."

In 2015, the IARC classified glyphosate as "probably carcinogenic to humans," which plaintiffs' attorneys have cited repeatedly as evidence of the herbicide's link to cancer. But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in conducting what Farm Bureau called "a robust pesticide registration review" of glyphosate, found the material is not a carcinogen and could be used safely in accordance with its current label.

"IARC's approach focuses on an entirely theoretical question of whether a substance is capable of causing cancer under any circumstances at any possible dose," the Farm Bureau brief said. "In contrast, through pesticide registrations and registration reviews, EPA analyzes scientific studies and data in order to make human health risk assessments and ecological risk assessments to determine whether there is any threat of harm to human health or the environment under actual conditions of use in the real world."

By allowing the IARC findings to become the foundation of the plaintiff's case but not allowing the jury to consider the EPA assessment of glyphosate, CFBF said, the jury and trial court "were not provided with proper scientific evidence."

In fact, Farm Bureau said, the exclusion of the EPA results shifted the focus of the trial to "the wrong question"—theoretical hazard determinations.

"A theoretical hazard determination will not provide a proper evaluation on the risks of pesticide use and should not be used to make regulatory decisions or legal decisions," CFBF said.

Farmers and ranchers have much at stake, Farm Bureau said, because the trial court's action "erodes the underpinnings of glyphosate's pesticide registration, particularly the science that is the basis for EPA's decision to register and re-register the product, questions the validity of the registration and label, and further calls into question if farmers and ranchers who use the product in accordance with the label are acting in compliance with the law."

Further, CFBF said, "farmers and ranchers fear that the trial court's decision will erode the highly regulated and controlled pesticide registration process."

The Farm Bureau brief was one of several filed last week asking the appeals court to overturn the verdict. Other parties filing briefs included the California Medical Association, California Dental Association, California Hospital Association, the Civil Justice Association of California and the biotechnology firm Genentech.

(Dave Kranz is editor of Ag Alert. He may be contacted at dkranz@cfbf.com.)