The Highwire with Del Bigtree - BAYER’S LEGAL FREE FALL

Episode Date: November 22, 2023

After years of legal losses, Bayer is in critical condition facing 160,000 claims that its flagship agricultural herbicide RoundUp is causing cancer. Can the company continue with the tsunami of litigation surrounding glyphosate?Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-highwire-with-del-bigtree--3620606/support.

There's so many long-standing stories that we've been tracking for many years that are coming to a hedge just this week. And it's trying to do this. So let's jump to this story here. Speaking of really making people's making their own decision, this is the story of Baer, Baer Pharmaceutical Company. They're from Germany. In 2016, they acquired Monsanto for over $60 billion. This was the largest ever by a German buyer, largest ever investment acquisition by a German buyer ever.

And of course, at that point, investors jumped on board. This was the greatest thing. This huge juggernaut, Bear and Monsanto, obviously acquiring Monsanto because of their flagship product for Roundup. Yeah, great product. Good idea, Bear. Genius. Right.

And one of the things Bear didn't tell its investors is there is a global groundswell, basically yearly marches against Monsanto. People do not like this company. There's some major issues with our products, but that was swept under the rug. Well, there's lawsuits, and that's where Brent Wisner comes in. This is attorney, Brent Wisner. He was on our show. He won the first lawsuit helped DeWain Johnson.

He was the plaintiff, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma from glyphosate use. He was spraying it in public parks. And so these lawsuits just keep coming and coming and coming for these cancer cases. And things just really race to ahead at the end of October here. So I'm going to run through three quick Reuters headlines. just to give you the space of this. October 20th, Bear must pay $1.25 million in Roundup Cancer Trial jury fines.

Seven days later, Bear ordered to pay $175 million in latest Roundup cancer trial. And then another one, just a couple days later, October 31st, Bear ordered to pay $332 million in Roundup cancer trial. So of course, that leads to some questions. You get some really nervous investors at that point who were already on edge over what's been going on

over the last three or four years. So this is Reuters again. Bear investor urges rethink after latest glyphosate defeat. It says in here, after this week's loss, investor nervousness is mounting about the company's future litigation liabilities. At the last count, settlements were still pending in 47,000 of the approximately 160,000 claims filed, according to Bear. I mean, just think when you're looking at hundreds of millions of dollars per case and 160,000 or whatever in the queue, man, that spells trouble for that investment.

by bear. And the bear has been having a big problem trying to settle all those cases, trying to come to an agreement like Johnson Johnson or like the Sackler family and the opioids situation. Bear is not having that type of success. So this is the headline. Now you're seeing out of Reuters, Bearways break up options as management jobs cuts loom. So last year, they posted a quarterly gain of 546 million euros. This quarter, it posted a net loss of $46 million. This quarter, it posted a net loss of 457 billion euros. So this is a huge change. Cities are pulling around up from parks and playgrounds. This product is not popular. And the scientists are really backing up a lot of the science and digging into this a lot more. What's happening now, so putting bear aside for a second, the over, kind of like

the overall background in the United States, just like in 1986 when the 1986 Act passed, giving vaccine manufacturers basically liability from these lawsuits. So they were saying, look, so many people are suing us for these vaccines because they're getting harm by, they're getting harm by our shots. We're going to need protection if you want us to keep making shots. And so that's what the government essentially did. Similar thing is happening now. This is called the Agriculture Labeling Uniformity Act.

And this is Carrie Gilliam. She's been reporting on this topic, topic of pesticides for over a decade. and she wrote this in The Guardian, it's an abomination, the headline, it's an abomination battle brewing over proposed U.S. laws to protect pesticides companies. So if we go to this law and we look at it, it's some legal easing here, but I'm going to break it down to the best of my ability here. So this is the Agriculture Labeling Uniformity Act. And it says in here, it shall be applied to require uniformity in national pesticide labeling.

So they want all the same label and all pesticides. So remember, big part of this lawsuit was people were not informed. of the dangers on the labeling. So they're saying, well, just don't worry about that anymore. No matter what new science comes forward, we're just going to have a one-stop shop on the label here. It may cause harm, you know, use it your own risk. That's going to cover us blanket.

But then it goes on to say this. It says, and this act prohibit any state instrumentality or political subdivision thereof or a court from directly or indirectly imposing or continuing in effect any requirements for or penalize or hold liable, any entity for failing to comply with requirements. with respect to labeling or packaging that is in addition to or different from the labeling or packaging approved by the administrator under such an act. So basically it's saying you can't sue us in court and these court cases that are happening.

This is going to provide some background. You can't sue us. Municipality, cities, you can't remove these things because the labeling wasn't adequate or because some science you think may be there. If it's not in the label, you can't make these administrative decisions. So this is a big, this is a bit. And of course, all pesticide companies are backing this. all the lobbying companies for the past itself. It hasn't passed yet, right? This is just like proposed a proposed law. I mean, if this doesn't show people where we're at now,

that this is complete and total regulatory capture, these regulatory agencies, you've been trusting with your life, the CDC, the FDA, all under the HHS, you know, mothership, HRSA in this case, trying to block literally like liability protection for chemicals being sprayed on your food and things that you care about your children. You're going to have no right to sue because the government is no longer your government. Your government is now owned by these pharmaceutical companies, by these petroium and agricultural companies that are just destroying our lives and our government is helping them do it and protecting them. This is why we are so involved in this space right now, bringing lawsuits and everything else. We've got to stop this. I mean,

this insanity must end now. It's crazy. And so over in the European Union, they they give authorization to glyphosate this chemical for a 10-year block. So that authorization is actually up now. And so in October, there was a re-vote because the entire European Union, all the representatives have to vote on this. And there needs to be something called a qualified majority, which is over 50%. So to re-up this thing for another 10 years. So this was in October, the headline, EU can't reach decision on prolonging the use of chemical herbicide glyphosate. So that's good news because it's good news if you know the science and you've been following this because they're saying let's pause this for a second. We need to do more studies on this. And that's what there was not the qualified majority. And one of the

reasons is because new science, not just cancer, but Parkinson's, this was in the Lancet. They're saying the inadequacy of current pesticide regulations for protecting brain health, the case of glyphosate and Parkinson's disease. So just like, just like we had on the attorney for fluoride being put in the water, they said, yeah, fluoride's great for your teeth. But remember on the we played that clip and they said, well, did you check for children's brain health? Well, no, we didn't really do those studies. So this is a similar thing that's happening. We have glyphosate. It's safe for use and we're finding this cancer issue. But now we're finding a Parkinson's issue possibly with with these pesticides and glyphosate specifically. So the European Union has paused

that vote. It was supposed to vote today for another trying to basically get this consensus. They voted. And here's the headline, EU to renew herbicide. glyphosate approval for 10 years. But if you go into this article and you look at this, it says this qualified majority was not hit. So again, they were not able to hit this qualified majority. So what happens, the rules is if they do not hit the qualified majority, the European Commission steps in and they make the choice. And what they're going to do or what they have signaled, they're going to do is step in and approve it. So this is essentially a phantom consensus. So you're going to hear in the headlines, the EU approved it.

It's all okay, and they're going to use this in the courtroom. The pharmaceutical, the bear in the lawsuits, they're going to say the EU has up this for another 10 years. It's safe, but there was no consensus. So it's very important little piece to really take home from this. Looks like over there in Europe, you guys have got to do your work, too. We all do. You know, you are being robbed blind where they're making you point to all the other issues you're screaming at and you're trying to decide the news has got you yelling about, you know, this inconsistency or that or how your neighbor is screwing you.

you know, they're running out, they're running out the door with all of your, you know, freedoms and your health in their hands. This is crazy. It must be stopped. All around the world, we have got to now stand up against our governments that are clearly now being purchased by these giant mega international corporate interests. Absolutely.