Judge: Monsanto Not Required to Place Warning Labels on Products
Nick Cahill- February 26, 2018, Court House News Service
SACRAMENTO (CN) – A federal judge on Monday halted California’s plan to require Monsanto to place warning labels on its Roundup products, saying scientists haven’t shown a clear connection between glyphosate and cancer.
U.S. District Judge William Shubb sided with the St. Louis-based chemical giant in its First Amendment lawsuit, ruling that warning labels, which would have been required as of July, could confuse and mislead customers.
“The required warning for glyphosate does not appear to be factually accurate and uncontroversial because it conveys the message that glyphosate’s carcinogenicity is an undisputed fact, when almost all other regulators have concluded that there is insufficient evidence that it causes cancer,” the ruling issued late Monday states.
Monsanto and a collection of farming groups sued in November 2017 in response to the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard’s decision that it would designate glyphosate as a carcinogen and subsequently require warning labels on retail products.
California’s decision to list glyphosate under Proposition 65 was spurred by the International Agency for Research on Cancer’s 2015 conclusion that the chemical was a “probable” human carcinogen.
