1.Nearly 100 more cancer lawsuits filed against Monsanto
2.Monsanto and dioxins
EXTRACTS: The complaints also detail the history of Monsanto and the company's knowledge regarding dioxin.
The plaintiffs seek compensatory damages for medical bills past and future, lost wages, pain and suffering, mental anguish and loss of enjoyment of life. They also seek punitive damages for the "willful, wanton and reckless" actions of the defendants "evidencing a callous disregard for the health and wellbeing of the residents of the Nitro area." 9item 1)
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1.Nearly 100 more cancer lawsuits filed against Monsanto
By Chris Dickerson – Putnam Bureau
The Record (West Virginia's legal journal), 26 August 2009
http://www.wvrecord.com/news/220760-nearly-100-more-cancer-lawsuits-filed-against-monsanto
WINFIELD – Three weeks after an original 50 were filed, nearly 100 more lawsuits have been filed alleging Monsanto and related companies are responsible for causing cancer.
Like the other 50 filed earlier this month, the 97 newest complaints filed Aug. 24 in Putnam Circuit Court say Monsanto and its successor companies caused cancer by exposing the plaintiffs to dioxins/furans contamination of the air and property in and around Nitro. The cases mention the "negligent and otherwise unlawful release of dioxin from defendants' waste disposal practices on properties ... located in and about Nitro, West Virginia."
These individual cases, filed by Stuart Calwell and The Calwell Firm of Charleston, are not part of an ongoing class action involving thousands of current and former Nitro residents alleging Monsanto polluted the area with dioxin. The class action case specifies no specific damages, and the class-action plaintiffs seek medical monitoring.
The plaintiffs in the 147 new cases, also represented by Calwell, are residents and former residents of Nitro or one or more of several surrounding communities of the now defunct chemical plant located near Nitro. They lived, worked or attended school in Nitro. Some of the plaintiffs are deceased, and those suits are filed by family members.
Monsanto owned and operated the plant from 1934 to 2000. From 1949 to 1970, the company produced an herbicide that was heavily contaminated with dibenzo dioxins and dibenzo furans. The complaints say the company disposed of the dioxin-contaminated waste in a way which caused dioxins to escape into the air.
The plaintiffs say their property and soil was contaminated.
"During the years that Old Monsanto was operating it's trichlorophenol plant, it adopted an unlawful practice of disposing of dioxin waste materials by a continuous process of open 'pit' burning," the complaints state. "This practice was largely denied by Old Monsanto whose representatives characterized the practice as an 'incineration process' when asked by regulatory authorities.
"Old Monsanto and its successors ”¦ failed to adequately control the dioxin contaminated soils and other dioxin contaminated waste materials both on and off the plant site. Dioxins/furans continued to be re-deposited and re-distributed from the plant site and the off-site dumps so as to continue the process of air and property contamination."
The complaints say the defendants knew of the dangers.
The defendants "should have known of the highly toxic properties of dioxin and that dioxin was and is a known promoter of cancer and that dioxin was and is a known human carcinogen," the complaints state. The defendants "knew that the area around the Monsanto plant was populated with permanent residents who would likely live out their lives in the area contaminated."
The complaints also detail the history of Monsanto and the company's knowledge regarding dioxin. The Nitro plant produced herbicides, rubber products and other chemicals, including Agent Orange.
Dioxin has been linked to cancer, birth defects, learning disabilities, endometriosis, infertility and suppressed immune functions.
The plaintiffs seek compensatory damages for medical bills past and future, lost wages, pain and suffering, mental anguish and loss of enjoyment of life. They also seek punitive damages for the "willful, wanton and reckless" actions of the defendants "evidencing a callous disregard for the health and wellbeing of the residents of the Nitro area."
Putnam Circuit Court case numbers 09-C-243 through 09-C-282 and 09-C-315 through 09-C-411
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2.Dioxins
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Monsanto%2C_Agent_Orange_and_Dioxins
(Note: much of the following is extracted from The Monsanto Investigation by William Sanjour, Policy Analyst at the EPA[*])
"The story starts in Nitro, West Virginia at a Monsanto chemical plant which was manufacturing the herbicide 2,4,5-T (the principal ingredient of Agent Orange, which contains traces of dioxin). In 1949, a runaway reaction at the plant caused an explosion releasing reaction material, resulting in many workers being doused with dioxin. In 1978 when concern about dioxin was on the rise and EPA was considering banning 2,4,5-T, Monsanto sponsored several studies of the long range health effects of the workers exposed to dioxin ... These studies were published in medical and scientific journals between 1980 and 1984. Publication of the first study, in 1980, coincided with a time when Monsanto was defending itself in three different legal actions relating to dioxin exposure from their products. Monsanto issued a press release headlined 'Study Fails to Link "Agent Orange" to Deaths of Industrial Workers'. All of these studies showed no statistically significant increase in cancers among the
exposed workers. Because of the high exposures, these studies contributed to the conclusion drawn in EPA and elsewhere that: '[T]he human evidence supporting an association between 2,3,7,8-TCDD [dioxin] and cancer is considered inadequate.' Monsanto's studies would promote the idea that human beings, unlike other animals, are relatively immune to this man-made chemical".
Then in Sturgeon, Missouri in 1979 "a freight train derailment caused the spill of a tank car, containing 19,000 gallons of a Monsanto chlorophenol intermediate called OCP-crude,used in making wood preservatives and contaminated with dioxin. Francis Kemner and others exposed to the spill filed a suit in Missouri state court in 1980 (Kemner et al v. Monsanto Company). The trial lasted three years and eight months", which Sanjour later explains was "the longest running trial in history at the time". And while in the end "the jury did not believe the plaintiffs had proven that they had suffered any harm to date ... they were outraged at the egregious behavior of the Monsanto Company". Among the allegations made by the plaintiff's attorneys was:
* Monsanto failed to notify and lied to its workers about the presence and danger of dioxin in its chlorophenol plant, so that it would not have to bear the expense of changing its manufacturing process or lose customers,
* Monsanto knew how to make chlorophenol with significantly less dioxin content but did not do so until after the Sturgeon spill.
* Monsanto knowingly dumped 30 to 40 pounds of dioxin a day into the Mississippi River between 1970 and 1977 which could enter the St. Louis food chain.
* Monsanto lied to EPA that it had no knowledge that its plant effluent contained dioxin.
* Monsanto secretly tested the corpses of people killed by accident in St. Louis for the presence of dioxin and found it in every case.
* Lysol, a product made from Monsanto's Santophen, was contaminated with dioxin with Monsanto's knowledge. Lysol is recommended for cleaning babies' toys and for other cleaning activities involving human contact.
* The manufacturer of Lysol was not told about the dioxin by Monsanto for fear of losing his business.
* Other companies using Santophen, who specifically asked about the presence of dioxin, were lied to by Monsanto.
* Monsanto was aware that dioxin contaminated their lawn care products (which were eventually banned by EPA).
* Monsanto sold these and many other consumer products knowingly contaminated with dioxin without warning the public for over thirty years.
* Shortly after a spill in the Monsanto chlorophenol plant, OSHA measured dioxin on the plant walls. Monsanto conducted its own measurements, which were higher than OSHA's, but they issued a press release to the public and they lied to OSHA and their workers saying they had failed to confirm OSHA's findings.
* Exposed Monsanto workers were not told of the presence of dioxin and were not given protective clothing even though the company was aware of the dangers of dioxin.
* Even though the Toxic Substances Control Act requires chemical companies to report the presence of hazardous substances in their products to EPA, Monsanto never gave notice and lied to EPA in reports.
* At one time Monsanto lied to EPA saying that it could not test its products for dioxin because dioxin was too toxic to handle in its labs.
* At the trial a Monsanto executive argued that it did not report what it considered very low levels of dioxin to EPA because it would merely "add fuel to the media fires."
"Monsanto fought these charges with the best lawyers and expert witnesses that money could buy. They had to; the downside risk to Monsanto was enormous. If the plaintiffs in the Kemner case could collect damages, then every user of Lysol, Weed-B-Gone, and dozens of other consumer products using chemicals containing traces of dioxin might collect damages and put Monsanto and other chemical companies into bankruptcy".
"Despite Monsanto's parade of expert witnesses, the jury expressed its opinion of Monsanto's honesty and integrity by the unusual award of more than sixteen million dollars in punitive damages." However, the "Plaintiffs lost on appeal on the technical legal ground that a punitive award could not be made in the absence of actual damages regardless of the facts in the case".
Several years later, Cate Jenkins, a PhD chemist at EPA, became convinced that Monsanto had deliberately manipulated studies showing that dioxin was a human carcinogen [8][9]. Greenpeace also "issued a detailed 44 page critique of the Monsanto studies by Joe Thornton entitled 'Science for Sale'" [10] (1). Whether this was a case of fraud or not, it wouldn't be unusual for Monsanto [11]
"On February 23, 1990, Jenkins sent a memorandum to the EPA Science Advisory Board entitled 'Newly Revealed Fraud by Monsanto in an Epidemiological Study Used by EPA to Assess Human Health Effects from Dioxins', attaching a copy of part of the Kemner Plaintiffs-Appellees' brief dealing with the Monsanto studies. She requested that the Board or the EPA Office of Research and Development, audit the records of these studies to see if they were flawed". Ironically, rather than investigate the Monsanto studies the EPA launched what Sanjour says was a harrassing investigation of Jenkins. "Within days of learning that the Office of Enforcement [which "began to look into the criminal aspect of the fraud charges"] had initiated a criminal investigation of Monsanto based on Jenkins' allegations, her job duties were withdrawn without warning. She was not given any assignments from August 30, 1990 until she was reassigned on April 8, 1992 to a job which was primarily administrative or clerical."
"Dr. Jenkins filed a complaint with the Department of Labor claiming that she was being harassed for carrying out perfectly legal activities". The Labor Department investigated and found in Jenkins favor. The EPA appealed three times all the way up to the Secretary of Labor but each time the Department came down in favor of Jenkins finding that "None of the rationales [explaining her transfer] given by EPA ... appear valid".
"In August of 1992, EPA quietly closed the criminal investigation without ever determining or even attempting to determine if the Monsanto studies were valid or invalid, let alone fraudulent.... There was no public announcement that the investigation was closed. Dr. Jenkins didn't learn about it until fifteen months later. Yet Monsanto knew within a few days of EPA's closure".
According to John Thomas Burch, Jr., an attorney, a Viet Nam veteran and the chairman of the National Viet Nam Veterans Coalition, "Dr. Jenkins' memos about the Monsanto studies 'broke a roadblock' to additional legislation in Congress which 'meant thousands of [veterans] getting medical care who wouldn't have gotten it otherwise.' For this she was awarded a plaque for exemplary service to Viet Nam veterans".
"Although she had committed no crime, Jenkins had been vilified and harassed for the sin of wanting to protect the public from dioxin. Many wrongs, including violations of EPA's own regulations, were committed by those who illegally harassed her, but no one has suggested punishment for them. And while many EPA officials were willing, even anxious, to apologize to Monsanto, none has come forward to apologize to Dr. Jenkins".
Sanjour concluded by saying that "This kind of cold-blooded analysis is bad enough when the product is used by the general public, but it is insufferable when used on our own armed forces who were exposed in combat.... The issue wasn't false science, but allegedly using false science to cover-up a callous hard-hearted decision to continue poisoning our GIs and their children because it was cheaper to do so."
[* http://www.greens.org/s-r/078/07-49.html ]