
Monsanto Attempts Defense That Would Negate All Glyphosate Lawsuits - saalweachter
https://modernfarmer.com/2019/12/monsanto-attempts-defense-that-would-negate-all-glyphosate-causes-cancer-lawsuits/
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mantap
Doesn't their argument run up against the first amendment? If Monsanto desire
to communicate to their customers that one of their products is potentially
carcinogenic surely they have a first amendment right to do that, whatever the
EPA thinks.

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beerandt
Not when it comes to labeling an EPA listed product.

Now, there's an argument that if they discovered something that contradicted
EPA findings, that they should have reported it to the EPA and/or published
their findings, although I'm not sure if that stands as a legal argument or
just an ethical one.

But re: labeling: imagine we're talking prescription medication. One generic
lists different side effects than another generic of the same type. Or even
benefits. For selling a product that's chemically identical. It would be the
stuff of dreams for homeopaths, who could list whatever benefit they wanted,
as long as they could find a study to back it up.

Uniform labeling is sort of the (a) purpose of the elevated regulation of such
products.

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eesmith
Aren't there several issues at hand?

They could communicate to their customers through means other than the label,
eg, through advertising buys, or informing the media.

They would stop producing the chemical until things are corrected.

Is your point really applicable? California has labeling laws which are
independent of the US ones, eg, "This product contains chemicals known to the
State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive
harm" due to 1986 California Proposition 65.

This suggests that there isn't uniform labeling across the US.

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beerandt
If a State requires a certain label, that's usually fine as long as it doesn't
conflict with federal labeling requirements or regs. But you've got to
accomplish essentially the same thing you would need to on the federal level,
except in one or more states.

As for "voluntary" labeling, the rules have evolved to be weird sometimes, but
usually if the EPA claims a chemical is safe, a company can't "override" that
on their label. Besides industry specific regs, libel and anti-competitive
laws come into play as well.

So even if the EPA let's you add a warning to the label, doesn't mean a
competitor won't sue you for doing it. Another concern is tacit admission of
guilt. It strengthens the claims made by users/plaintiffs from before a
warning was put on the label. There's a lot of conflicting cya aspects to
consider.

For a non EPA example of this, look at the battle over milk labeling re: rBST.

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eesmith
Thanks for the followup. Note that my comment specifically questioned your
analogy with prescription medication.

