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EPA Evidence
Judge Joshua Roberts allowed defendants to present the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency findings that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, did not pose a health risk for people exposed to it. In February 2020, EPA found that there are no risks of concern to human health when glyphosate is used in accordance with its current label. EPA also found that glyphosate is unlikely to be a human carcinogen. (Meanwhile, a federal appeals court in 2022 ordered the EPA to re-examine its 2020 finding. And a study in 2023 from Aimpoint Research finds that the loss of the widely used herbicide glyphosate would be costly to farmers, the economy, and the environment. The study was funded by Bayer.)
The plaintiffs asserted that the EPA evidence should not have been presented because it was irrelevant to the plaintiff’s claims of common-law negligence. And they further argued that the court improperly barred the plaintiffs from mentioning a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruling finding issues in the EPA study. As reported by Law.com, the plaintiffs argued that, “The jury was left with a misleading presentation of the current state of the EPA’s findings on glyphosate and prevented from considering evidence that fairly rebutted Monsanto’s own reliance on EPA’s regulatory decisions concerning Roundup and glyphosate,” and that the court wrongly barred them from introducing evidence regarding an IARC study linking glyphosate to cancer.
IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer) Evidence
The IARC classified glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen in 2015. This was based on “limited” evidence of cancer in humans (from real-world exposures that actually occurred) and “sufficient” evidence of cancer in experimental animals (from studies of “pure” glyphosate). IARC also concluded that there was “strong” evidence for genotoxicity, both for “pure” glyphosate and for glyphosate formulations. The Lancet said evidence of glyphosate’s link to non-Hodgkin lymphoma, leukemia, lung, is limited in humans but showed sufficient evidence in animals.
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No doubt Kline is hopeful that the above evidence will be allowed at his next trial.