US judge rules for Monsanto on weedkiller label

California cannot force Monsanto to put a cancer warning label on its Roundup weedkiller, a federal judge in Sacramento ruled.

Despite three jury verdicts in favor of cancer victims exposed to the glyphosate-based herbicide, U.S. District Judge William Shubb found there's not enough evidence to require the Bayer-owned company to include a warning and that doing so would be compelled speech in violation of the First Amendment.

"The State of California may not skew the public debate by forcing companies to adopt the state's determination that glyphosate is a carcinogen, relying solely on the [International Agency for Research on Cancer's] determination, when the great weight of evidence indicates that glyphosate is not known to cause cancer," he wrote in the Monday order.

While the finding will not affect the verdicts against Monsanto, which total nearly $200 million and are now on appeal, the company will be able to point to a federal judge's order that the state cannot mandate it to include a label given several domestic and international regulatory agencies' conclusions that glyphosate is likely not a probable cause of cancer in humans.

Shubb's permanent injunction order is the company's first victory in court after a string of losses.

"This is a very important ruling for California agriculture and for science, as a federal court, after weighing all the facts, has concluded that the evidence does not support a cancer warning requirement for glyphosate-based products," the company said in a statement.

Bayer faces as many as 125,000 Roundup lawsuits in state and federal court alleging exposure to glyphosate-based weedkillers causes non-Hodgkin lymphoma. It has aggressively fought to remove the chemical from a list created by Proposition 65 requiring warnings for products known to the state to cause cancer or birth defects.

In the ruling, Schubb considered the state of the science around glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup.

The dispute primarily centers around conflicting findings by the Environmental Protection Agency and the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer.

The California Department of Pesticide Regulation required Monsanto to include a warning in 2017 after the WHO agency classified glyphosate as a probable carcinogen. Shubb noted other scientific studies finding a link between exposure to glyphosate and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

But the overwhelming consensus among global regulatory agencies -- including the EPA, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the European Chemicals Agency -- finds there is not enough evidence that exposure to glyphosate at real world levels causes cancer, Schubb concluded.

"Every regulator of which the court is aware, with the sole exception of the IARC, has found that glyphosate does not cause cancer or that there is insufficient evidence to show that it does," Schubb wrote.

The federal judge said requiring a warning label would be "misleading to the ordinary consumer." He rejected proposals by state Attorney General Xavier Becerra to include the conflicting EPA and the WHO agency's findings since consumers would likely think there's an equal amount of evidence supporting both sides.

A spokesperson for Becerra said his office is reviewing Shubb's order. National Association of Wheat Growers v. Becerra, 17-CV-02401 (E.D. Cal., filed Nov. 15, 2017).

UC Hastings School of Law professor David Levine said arguments that "effectively make manufacturers the ensurer of every product" were rejected. He noted the WHO agency was among the lone dissenting agencies finding glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen when it was first required by the state to include labels.

Shubb issued a preliminary injunction in 2018 prohibiting California from forcing Monsanto to include a warning. It followed the first jury verdict in favor of a school groundskeeper who alleged exposure to Roundup caused his non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

In each of the three jury trials, Monsanto has maintained that the EPA has repeatedly approved glyphosate-based weedkillers for sale.

Plaintiffs' attorneys' have countered that the agency is improperly influenced by the company, allowing it to ghost-write studies on Roundup's safety, among other claims.

A Bayer spokesperson declined to comment on rumors the company has tentatively agreed to settle up to 85,000 Roundup lawsuits for roughly $10 billion.

Kenneth Feinberg, who did not return requests for comment, has been overseeing settlement discussions.