I never thought I’d find myself defending agrochemical giant and all-around cartoon villain Monsanto… but here we are.
Earlier this month, Monsanto was ordered to pay American groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson $289M (USD) in a modern David vs Goliath story. Why? Because a jury determined that Monsanto’s weedkiller Roundup caused Johnson’s cancer.
Monsanto is most well-known for producing genetically modified crops and suing farmers who unintentionally cultivate those patented seeds. Their most successful modification makes crops resistant to the Roundup, a weedkiller. Monsanto also has a long history of producing chemicals linked with birth defects and cancer, including Agent Orange.
However, I’m not here to debate the likelihood that Roundup caused Johnson’s cancer – the scientific jury is still out on that one. I’m also not here to get into whether Monsanto covered up evidence that glyphosate, Roundup’s active ingredient, causes cancer. I’m here to make the point that juries should never make judgements about scientific questions.
Roundup: The weedkiller that could be killing people
It can take years to develop the knowledge and skills to assess scientific evidence within your own field, let alone from a field you have no experience with. Scientists rarely approach a research question, like “is Roundup carcinogenic?” out of context; they assess the causal evidence against a backdrop of previous results, standards of evidence, and specific research methods. This is long after learning the basics of the scientific method, statistics, the relevance of animal studies to humans, and how to put their own personal beliefs and biases aside.
The problem of personal beliefs and biases is especially problematic in cases involving controversial corporations like Monsanto.
How can members of the general public be expected to catch up on the background and nuances of oncology, epidemiology and biochemistry in a matter of days? Even if they could, their task was to determine, with certainty, whether Roundup is capable of causing cancer in humans, and whether it did cause one particular human’s cancer. Science simply doesn’t work this way; conclusions can’t be demanded on cue.
Even when the weight of scientific evidence points strongly towards one conclusion, courts can still make the wrong decision. In 2012 an Italian judge ruled that the MMR vaccine was responsible for triggering a child’s autism, despite overwhelming evidence that there is no link between vaccines and autism. The judge relied primarily on a single, fundamentally flawed, and retracted paper by Andrew Wakefield, who has since had his medical licence revoked. Thankfully, that verdict has since been overturned by a higher court that saw through Wakefield’s fraudulent study. However, the original judgement may still have influenced Italy’s attitude towards vaccination policy.
The recent Monsanto verdict highlights the greater problem of asking juries to assess not only the validity of the evidence presented in court but the validity of the methods used to collect that evidence. Jury members don’t tend to question the source of evidence presented in a courtroom, as they understandably assume that it has already been validated.
A recent report from the US President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) found that most forensic ‘science’ techniques have no actual foundation in science. PCAST claimed that only DNA analysis, and only when one person’s DNA is present in the sample, is both scientifically valid and conducted accurately in practice. Bite mark, fingerprint, firearm and footprint analyses either had only shaky evidence for their accuracy, or none at all, according to PCAST. This claim is especially disturbing given that juries have used bite mark analysis to falsely imprison a number of people.
Whether you’re David or Goliath, if you find yourself on trial, think twice before leaving the decision up to a jury of your peers.
Dr Ashleigh Morse talks with Marc Fennell and Laura Murphy Oates.
