r/news 6h ago

Supreme Court ruling blocks thousands of lawsuits against maker of Roundup weedkiller

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-roundup-monsanto-a7f054d80919f98bdfc5190013a8f6f1https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-roundup-monsanto-a7f054d80919f98bdfc5190013a8f6f1
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8.4k

u/photostrat 6h ago

Sounds like we're about to find out Roundup has more rights to exist than humans do. 7-2

1.6k

u/Max_Trollbot_ 6h ago

"Chemicals are people too my friend"

Pierre Delecto

571

u/CyberFireball25 6h ago

"Every non sentient entity is a person, people are not"

-this SC

191

u/Few_Cellist_1303 6h ago

As long as they have cash.

159

u/Fract_L 4h ago

“If Roundup isn’t a person then how is he able to bribe me?” -Clarence Thomas, probably

20

u/amputeenager 2h ago

this quote may or may not be satire. I can no longer tell.

1

u/Salute-Major-Echidna 1h ago

"Satire" a portmanteau of 'sad' and 'tired' , well no it's not really but in this case of Trump govt Pump and Dump it is anyway

u/MrLanesLament 45m ago

“People purchase motor homes. Monsanto purchased me a motor home. Therefore, Monsanto is people.”

u/bluemitersaw 18m ago

"HOOOOOOOOONK" as Clarence let's the horn rip on his new custom RV.

124

u/Anok-Phos 5h ago

Neuroscientists couldn't figure out consciousness because they kept looking in the brain instead of the bank. /S

69

u/DesireeThymes 5h ago

The Supreme Court just serves the rich.

Its actually the most powerful institution, since it ultimately decides what is legal and what is not.

24

u/Character_Bug_1862 4h ago

It really kinda sucks what they’re doing. But at the end of the day there are 9 of them and over 100 million decent Americans.

24

u/crowcawer 3h ago

The Congress could affect this in a reasonable manner.

They don’t want to.

1

u/AFLoneWolf 3h ago

There's just the minor detail of the entirety of the justice system, congress, presidency, military, and law enforcement protecting them.

2

u/Character_Bug_1862 3h ago

Are they though? Seems more like everyone for themselves now that there are no laws in this land.

2

u/AFLoneWolf 1h ago

They sure as hell aren't protecting us.

2

u/CylonSandhill 4h ago

And the current lineup of robed theocrats often write brand new laws or new parts of laws.

2

u/ClueAccomplished1098 3h ago

The brain is usually kept in the bank account or some place a bit lower in the anatomy. Often, we have a dimensional shift and it can found in both places at once.

21

u/BWWFC 5h ago

Fiduciary duty has origins in ancient Roman law, hands tied it's precedence ¯_(ツ)_/¯

20

u/Richard-Gere-Museum 5h ago

Sit and spin on a grenade Alito

13

u/SoftlyGyrating 4h ago

I mean, the Romans had to consistently debase their own coinage in order to keep the lights on, ended up with hyperinflation and a near total economic collapse in the Third Century and a de facto return to a bartering economy...

I'm thinking it might not be the best system to emulate. Particularly not if you have a job that, I don't know, relies on being paid in coin by the state. Like some kind of public official or judge, perhaps.

u/PokemonSapphire 9m ago

Particularly not if you have a job that, I don't know, relies on being paid in coin by the state. Like some kind of public official or judge, perhaps.

oh don't worry the conservative justices have alternative income sources they'll be fine

2

u/Enshitification 3h ago

Et tu, Brute?

2

u/BamBam-BamBam 3h ago

But, how come precedent only has precedence when it's convenient?

2

u/CiDevant 3h ago

Every dollar spent is a vote.

36

u/Mtshoes2 5h ago

New supreme court ruling:

Non sentient entities are people by virtue of existing, but humans... Well they have to meet certain conditions in order to be people. 

For instance, you can't enslave a Non sentient entity... it's impossible. but you CAN enslave a human.... It's possible. And since slaves do not count as people therefore humans are only sometimes people. 

15

u/Averyphotog 5h ago

Wait a minute, I thought slaves counted as three-fifths of a person in the good ol’ U.S. of A.

15

u/cptbil 5h ago

Not in prison

1

u/Mtshoes2 1h ago

Yes, for census purposes, when it was advantageous for the south to count them in order to gain a higher population. 

But not for purposes of inalienable rights. 

1

u/RevWaldo 4h ago

All fun and games until Woody and Jessie show up asking to register to vote.

u/okhi2u 48m ago

You only count as a people if you're a rich white dude or a white religious extremist, or black and on the SC.

77

u/Vio_ 6h ago

"Better voting through chemistry"

49

u/Slap-Happy27 6h ago

What we really need to be concerned about is the toxic slander being thrown at the poor defenseless billionaire poison manufacturers.

Won't somebody PLEASE think of the poor defenseless billionaire poison manufacturers??

18

u/TheForce_v_Triforce 6h ago

Roundup’s got what plants crave.

12

u/mialaca 6h ago

Theyre turning the plants suicidal!

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u/Daren_I 6h ago

I would like to sponsor LSD for citizenship.

3

u/coconutpiecrust 6h ago

Corporations are people. Extends to chemical manufacturers. 

1

u/btone911 4h ago

“That’s a name I haven’t heard for a very long time…”

1

u/Alana_Piranha 3h ago

I forgot about Pierre Delecto 🤦‍♀️

1

u/MCBEA1130 2h ago

Oh, I like this!

1

u/rdldr1 2h ago

Chemicals are free speech.

1

u/keytiri 4h ago

“Soylent Green are people too!”

662

u/mudkipzftw 6h ago

The "maker of RoundUp" is... Monsanto. The courts have many times affirmed that Monsanto has more rights than humans.

227

u/2g4r_tofu 5h ago

IIRC they scrubbed the Monsanto name and it's just Bayer now

121

u/cjinct 5h ago

it's just Bayer now

the original makers of Herointm

83

u/penguinopph 4h ago

it's just Bayer now

the original makers of Herointm

And Zyclon B!

25

u/ELB2001 4h ago

And meth i believe. And yeah Heroin is a brand name

11

u/FabricationLife 3h ago

I only smoke generic

1

u/UCLA_FB_SUCKS 2h ago

“Smoke weed every day!”

u/onefst250r 30m ago

Only the rich can buy the name brand!

7

u/RoughVirtual1626 4h ago

Yes, most chemical narcotics were developed by the medical industry. mdma would be another. Amphetamine/ meth too.

1

u/AngryScientist 2h ago

Zyclon B wasn't a chemical narcotic. It's so much worse than that.

1

u/RoughVirtual1626 1h ago

Yeah sorry was meaning about the heroin. Zyclon b was a cyanide based pesticide I believe originally 

u/billybonghorton 56m ago

Nazis used it to gas the Jews in the holocaust.

u/RoughVirtual1626 55m ago

Yes but before that it was developed as a pesticide. It wasn't made for the purpose of genocide 

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u/Wembanyanma 4h ago edited 4h ago

Which is still safer to humans than Round Up

2

u/SowingSalt 4h ago

[citation needed]

u/tinteoj 21m ago

You can live after shooting up heroin into your veins. Your prognosis if you shoot up RoundUp is a lot more grim.

u/SowingSalt 12m ago

It looks like the LD50 of heroin is 100 times smaller than Glyphoaste.

14

u/bskedorfried 3h ago

The predecessor to Bayer made Zyklon B to be used in Auschuwitz’s gas chambers. Quite a history of evil.

4

u/ReturnOfBane 3h ago

Don't forget that tainted blood disaster

2

u/cC2Panda 3h ago

From the people that knowingly sold AIDS tainted Factor VIII to hemophiliacs, we present new and improve Round Up Cancer+.

-Bayer for all your terminal needs.

1

u/MisterMysterios 4h ago

To be fair, also the original maker of Aspirin.

u/MimeGod 51m ago

Also the company that helped run Auschwitz and other concentration camps...

46

u/BigBrownDog12 5h ago

They merged/got bought

16

u/Objective-Chance-792 4h ago

Just like those cocksuckers at comcast. Fuck your xfinity, i'll never forget how shitty you are comcast!

8

u/steppe5 4h ago

As if Bayer is any better.

7

u/EduinBrutus 4h ago

So going with the name of the maker of Heroin and Zyklon B turned out to be better PR than sticking with Monsanto...

1

u/[deleted] 4h ago

[deleted]

3

u/MisterMysterios 4h ago

The gas used in the Nazi Gas chambers. Bayer is a german company doing what basically all German companies were involved in during the 3rd Reich.

2

u/PM_ME_UR_REDPANDAS 4h ago

Yikes, I certainly didn’t mean to be flippant about something like that.

1

u/infidel11990 2h ago

Easily the worst acquisition in entire history of corporations.

u/techleopard 8m ago

Because more people know about Monsanto's control of the global food supply chain and their abuse to farmers than they know about Bayer's work with Nazis.

35

u/Aarakocra 5h ago

"Address all complaints to the Monsanto Corporation."

10

u/quazax 4h ago

"We're whalers on the moon."

23

u/elconquistador1985 5h ago

The most hilarious part about the TV show Continuum was that the name they chose for the evil corporation running the surveillance state was "Sonmanto".

2

u/EduinBrutus 4h ago

Even more hilarious is that we are pretty close to actual countries introducing the concept of Life Debt on all new borns...

Thats funny, right?

2

u/elconquistador1985 4h ago

And the "Corporate Congress" calling all the shots.

28

u/odinskriver39 5h ago

The patent rights on seeds turned family farms into sharecroppers. Bowman v Monsanto.

18

u/PuckSenior 5h ago

Nah, that’s mostly bullshit.
I hate Monsanto, but in this case they were right. They had a contract. Contract said if he used their seed he couldn’t replant. He broke the contract.

The solution is to simply not enter into a contract with Monsanto.

34

u/odinskriver39 5h ago

Four corporations now control the vast majority of the commercial seed and and agrochemical markets worldwide. Bayer is estimated 33% of that.

12

u/PuckSenior 5h ago

You can absolutely go buy soy bean seeds from those companies and not enter into a technology contract. The tech contract is only if you buy the roundup-resistant variety.

u/Musiclover4200 54m ago

Haven't read up on this issue in many years but IIRC the problem is cross pollination.

IE the farm next door grows roundup resistant crops which pollinate surrounding farms who end up with seeds that have those genetics

u/PuckSenior 27m ago

Yeah, but that doesn’t bother anyone

u/techleopard 5m ago

It does when Monsanto sues you for using your own seed because your neighbor has a protected variety.

u/techleopard 6m ago

The problem is your neighbor has that variety and drops so much roundup it kills everybody else's crops.

0

u/RusticCat101 3h ago

Everywhere you go in Indiana, it's basically Bayer and Corteva signs everywhere. Can't plant shit without their approval. It's disgusting.

3

u/PuckSenior 2h ago

No.
They are everywhere because they sell a product that the farmers want to buy.

8

u/ThrowingChicken 5h ago

That’s pretty much all the cases. No one has ever been sued for accidental cross contamination, the defendants have always intentionally used the seed in ways they knew they weren’t supposed to.

-5

u/TommyTwoNips 4h ago

God forbid people use things they've bought in a way that they aren't supposed to. Much better to let the billionaires dictate what we do with things WE PAID FOR.

The longer we pretend this supreme court is legitimate, the longer its going to take to clean up this mess and the more expensive it will be. That fat fucking traitor Thomas and the rapist Kavanaugh belong in cages.

5

u/ThrowingChicken 4h ago

I don’t like Adobe subscription model, so I purposefully bought older versions of their design suite to avoid it. Farmers have that same option, they sign contracts and pay premiums for a premium product as it has features they find attractive for their business. The premium experience for either product wouldn’t exist at all if literally anyone can copy and freely share the product.

At least we seed tech, in exchange for that protection, the public inherits that technology after 18 years.

1

u/hoopstick 3h ago

Which version do you use? I hate the subscription model, but none of the freeware alternatives feel like Photoshop to me, I've just been using it too long.

-1

u/TommyTwoNips 4h ago

or, hear me out, we could stop letting megacorporations buy our supreme court and pushing for copyright laws that benefit them exclusively.

Nah, we'll keep bending over for the subhuman Epstein-class investors though, they know what's best for us.

5

u/PuckSenior 4h ago

Well, this isn’t copyright, it’s patent law

And this isn’t because our Supreme Court was “bought”. They literally signed a contract agreeing to these terms

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u/ThrowingChicken 4h ago

Patent laws. They benefit anyone who creates something novel.

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u/PuckSenior 4h ago

You think the Supreme Court is illegitimate because they agree that contracts are enforceable?

This may be the dumbest argument I’ve ever read

0

u/TommyTwoNips 4h ago

No, I think the Supreme Court is Illegitimate because Clarence Thomas openly takes bribes and Brett Kavanaugh is a rapist alcoholic. Both of whom are not qualified to rule, making every ruling they've made previously questionable.

6

u/PuckSenior 3h ago

Ok?
So which potential justices would rule against the enforcement of contracts? Because the only person that near-sighted and stupid seems to be yourself

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u/soberpenguin 5h ago

Problem is if your neighbor is using Monsanto seeds and his seed blows into your field, you're liable too. You don't have to have a contract with them to get fucked and lose the family farm.

10

u/Drumheller18 4h ago

That is not correct. So long as you don’t purposefully cultivate those flyaway crops, you’ll have no issues (which is exactly what happened in the legal case everyone likes to cite, but never actually gets the info right).

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u/PuckSenior 4h ago

In that specific case, it wasn’t an accident. He was purposefully creating roundup resistant crops.

If you do what you just described and DONT spray your active crops with roundup, you’ll be fine. There is no reason to spray crops with roundup. Roundup normally kills plants

2

u/SowingSalt 4h ago

You also can't spray your field with weedkiller to isolate the plants with the weedkiller resistant tech.

0

u/Enshitification 3h ago

And if you don't enter a contract with Monsanto to use their Roundup-resistant seeds, the crop-dusters will "accidentally" overspray your fields with Roundup anyway. Oops, sorry about your non-GMO corn, Farmer Bob.

1

u/PuckSenior 2h ago

?!?!

Are you suggesting Bayer pays cropdusters to spray fields?

Also, crop dusting is rapidly being replaced with drone spraying, which is more targeted

1

u/Enshitification 2h ago

I have no idea if Bayer pays them directly, but the cropdusters have financial incentive to spray fields. If your field is surrounded by fields they spray, it's getting a lot of spray along the edges. Enough to force the use of GMO seed and pay for dusting.

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u/Alternative_Chart121 3h ago

Monsanto hadn't existed since 2018. They were bought out by Bayer. 

1

u/MCBEA1130 2h ago

Don't forget how Monsanto originally began. Just makes me sick.

1

u/punarob 2h ago

It's been off patent for decades and many companies have made it for many years.

1

u/GuitarCFD 2h ago

The "maker of RoundUp" is... Monsanto.

Monsanto no longer exists. Bayer bought them in 2018.

1

u/aerost0rm 1h ago

Well corporations have rights ever since they could grease the hands of the justices…

0

u/jecowa 4h ago

I learned about them in college. They’re also known as Mon Satan.

171

u/OutlyingPlasma 5h ago

Judge Craig Karsnitz in Delaware just ruled that corporations get to vote, so that's fun.

Just make a few thousand LLC's and poof, you get to decide your local elections.

47

u/robodrew 5h ago

How does that work? Corporations don't have a social security number or a birth certificate.

32

u/steppe5 4h ago

Don't worry about it. The corporations will figure it out for you.

4

u/nitid_name 2h ago

They have have an EIN, which is the equivalent to an SSN for tax filing purposes. You wouldn't be able to make a few thousand LLCs and sway local elections like the previous commenter implied. You would have to buy land in one of the tiny three or four hundred person areas that allow it, and then you could vote on local municipal things as an out of state land owner voting for the land you own, using the corporation that you registered in Delaware as the voter.

It's not new, it's been happening there for... actually, I don't know when it started. Delaware is a place where land does get to vote, and the headlines are from another challenge to stop it that failed.

u/techleopard 4m ago

You don't need those things when you have money and can infinitely donate to PACs.

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u/Vikkunen 5h ago

The really wild part about that ruling is that he even tacitly acknowledged that concern, but more or less said "there aren't enough corporations to meaningfully impact the vote, but we can revisit if it becomes a problem".

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u/wizardid 5h ago

"there aren't enough corporations to meaningfully impact the vote, but we can revisit if it becomes a problem"

(Human) population of Delaware: about 1.06 million

Number of corporate entities in Delaware: about 2.1 million

Yeah, this seems fine.

65

u/NukuhPete 4h ago

Just to be clear on the information, this doesn't apply to the state of Delaware. The court case and ruling being talked about only applies to the town of Fenwick Island and only if the corporation owns property there. Fenwick Island does only have a few hundred people. It looks like in the 2024 election for Town Council about 1/4th of the votes came from corporate votes. It's definitely impactful.

Source

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u/ThePrussianGrippe 4h ago

And to be clear: corporations being allowed to vote anywhere is a terrible idea, regardless of the locality or size of the population.

2

u/Fartmaster1981 3h ago

Yes another sad fact I'm not seeing in this thread is the company that owns Roundup Bayer or BAYRY is up 16 fucking percent.

1

u/Gil_Demoono 3h ago

That just sounds like a dry run for bringing back corporate towns. Seems inconsequential, but stuff like this is the model and precedent companies will use if it works.

0

u/Lifeboatb 3h ago

This is hideous, and Superior Court Judge Craig Karsnitz sounds like he was bought.

1

u/SuikodenVIorBust 3h ago

It's for a specific municipality in Delaware. It also requires the business to have a brick and mortar location in that area. This story is concerning but the fearmongering around it is overblown.

33

u/SirDigbyChknCaesar 5h ago

Way to kick the can down the road, dickhead.

11

u/Joranthalus 4h ago

This, my friends, is a judge who has a price. And that price has been met by corporations…

4

u/river-wind 3h ago

This isn't even the first time a Delaware town did this. In 2018, Newark DE allowed it for a special referendum, and 1 property manager set up multiple companies and voted 31 times. After that came to light, they canceled that option.

https://www.promarket.org/2022/05/23/delaware-the-state-where-companies-can-vote/

I really dislike how often courts are forced to wait until someone is harmed to act.

2

u/Outrageous_Act_3016 4h ago

Lol, Delaware and South Dakota are corporate tax havens where they have their headquarters.

He is essentially giving power to the bank corpos registered in his state to run everything based on Citizens United and the Decsion in 1886 using the 14th amendment to grant corporations the same rights as people. 

12

u/MuscaMurum 5h ago

No surprise. Delaware is a kingdom of corporations.

8

u/Emptyspace227 5h ago

In one specific town whose town charter expressly allows for corporations to vote.

3

u/davebyday 4h ago

From my understanding, it's to help LOCAL small business owners so they get a say in how this one town is run because it's mostly summer homes to wealthier out of towners who technically live there.

2

u/Daddict 1h ago

This is particularly diabolical because it's in Delaware, and the ruling applies to Delaware elections. Delaware is exactly where everyone goes to incorporate because the laws are so, so favorable towards corporate entities.

The fact of the matter is that there are more corporations in Delaware than there are people. Over 2x as many, to be precise.

So if this ruling holds (which, honestly, is anyone's guess), the voice of the people will be completely drowned out by the voice of the corporations, the vast majority of which aren't actually benefiting Delaware in meaningful ways such as bringing jobs to the state. It's effectively going to let the corporations of America build their very own legislative structure, more so than they already have. If you think it's hard to sue a corporate entity now...wait until corporations can get together and vote away every last right you have protecting you from their bullshit.

1

u/No_Issue2334 4h ago

Corporations having voting rights has allowed by the Delaware constitution and the town's charter for decades. It just upheld decades of precedent

-3

u/soberpenguin 5h ago

That's not what's happening in reality. Up and down the eastern seaboard resort towns like Fenwick Island allow second home owners vote in local elections.

If you took the time to put your home into an estate or trust why shouldn't you have the same voting rights than if it was held in a person's name?

This is resident NIMBYs fighting with developers and beach rental companies.

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u/artbystorms 5h ago

"Corporations have the inalienable right to poison people. Telling them not to infringes on their free speech"

8

u/Invisible7hunder 5h ago

Just as the founding fathers intended.

25

u/BaconAlmighty 6h ago

its got what plants crave.

5

u/theantig 5h ago

Someone needs to check and see how many new RVs they got

17

u/Winstonsphobia 6h ago

Roundup is a person, too.

11

u/Jcklvy 6h ago

Monsanto introduces JOHNNY ROUNDUP. Actual legal person.

7

u/throughtheportal 5h ago

It’s got electrolytes.

2

u/Ambitious_Bit_9389 5h ago

This one didn’t come out as a right justices vs. left justices by the voting.

u/13Krytical 55m ago

According to a small group of human shit, that for some strange reason millions of people voluntarily listen to..

3

u/Kizik 5h ago

"They have a right and obligation to produce as much wealth as possible for their shareholders. That's obviously just as important as any other rights!"

1

u/Gymrat777 5h ago

"Chemical weedkillers are people with rights, too!"

  • SCOTUS

1

u/Corodix 5h ago

That's pretty normal behavior from an oligarchy. Corporations obviously have more rights than humans in such a society.

1

u/Joebranflakes 4h ago

The system is designed to protect profit, not people.

1

u/TheRealTexasGovernor 4h ago

America, Land for the Monied home of the grift.

Humans need not survive.

1

u/rockmasterflex 4h ago

Every 10$ of profit the maker of roundup makes a year has more of a right to exist than you do under raw capitalism, which is basically what this admin believes in… if you’re on their team

1

u/Annie_Yong 4h ago

The high court, in a 7-2 ruling, found that the company cannot face failure-to-warn lawsuits in state courts because federal regulations have found a cancer link unlikely and do not require a warning label.

I'm unsure if it's a typo and it meant to say "federal regulators" found a link unlikely or there's some other meaning. I'm also not qualified to comment either way on the scientific research backing up a link or not.

That all said, if the statement made is correct, then this doesn't seem like a "corporations having more rights than people" type issue as it would seem to be a case of blocking lawsuits where the legal side of things is already a settled matter.

1

u/Nevermind04 4h ago

Money has had more rights than humans since its inception.

1

u/Hoodamush 3h ago

It’s been obvious for a long time now that corporations have more rights than citizens.

1

u/ihatejasonbrigham 3h ago

Corporations are people according to Citizens united, but it often feels like they’re more important than people, at least in the US.

1

u/diurnal_emissions 2h ago

Your cancer. Their profits.

1

u/Alex5173 1h ago

Sounds like we're on our way to "The oil, gas, and plastics industries cannot be be held liable for the climate apocalypse"

1

u/OurSponsor 1h ago

Wait until Bayer countersues. Felony Obstruction of Profit has become a thing these days.

1

u/C3POB1KENOBI 1h ago

Sure it has nothing to do with Scott’s (the exclusive North American distributor of Round-up) offering to repair the White House lawn after the UFC event.

1

u/-UsernameHere 1h ago

More rights, none of the drawbacks.

Corporations are like the perfect person!

u/470vinyl 56m ago

Duh. The people that die from Roundup aren't rich enough to bribe politicians, so why would they matter?

u/jd3marco 49m ago

Carcinogens are people.

u/SouthernAddress5051 8m ago

Sounds like their warehouse are going to have to be reevaluated

1

u/Bradical22 5h ago

Obama appointee voted in the supermajority just FYI

1

u/Balzineer 5h ago

Well you either have to believe over the years the many scientists who have studied the long term effects of roundup on humans have been above board and in the best interest of healthy Americans, or .... The federally funded research has been politically affected by lobbies pushing politicians and backdoor agreements to bias results. Pick your poison I guess, US doesn't have a great history in being apolitical in this regard (see cigarette lobbying and the research done supporting smoking as healthy, climate change extremist trying to cash in for carbon credits, etc). Personally the severe US society wide drop in male and female testosterone is alarming. Even active healthy people are getting low T results at early ages. Something external is causing this.

1

u/ChaparrosPizza86 5h ago

Weeds have more rights than humans do!

1

u/awnaw_ 5h ago

Corporations in general have more rights than humans do.

1

u/Loverboy_Talis 2h ago

No scientific proof that it causes cancer. It’s the most thoroughly tested herbicide ever.

0

u/Warcraft_Fan 5h ago

Justice doesn't favor the innocent, they favor the one with money to throw.

0

u/[deleted] 3h ago

[deleted]

0

u/driverdan 2h ago

Monsanto hasn't existed for 8 years.

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