California jury says Bayer must pay $2B to couple in Roundup cancer trial

Re:California jury says Bayer must pay $2B to couple in Roun... by vkou on Monday May 13, 2019 @06:57PM (#19904885)

> and did it specifically cause this cancer.

If I sit you down for 30 minutes on a drum of dangerous nuclear waste, and within a year, you develop prostate cancer, how would you ever be able to definitively prove that I caused that cancer?

It could have, after all, been a random mutation in your body - caused by a stray cosmic ray.

Cancer is a probabilistic outcome. It is impossible to prove that any one particular thing caused any one particular cancer.

Does that mean that I should not be liable?

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Re:California jury says Bayer must pay $2B to couple in Roun... by dwaltrip on Tuesday May 14, 2019 @02:14AM (#19907189)

To clarify, you are hinting that there is a strong case to me be made for holding you liable, correct? I had a hard time determining what your takeaway was.

I would agree with that, as society should work to prevent actions that significantly increase the probability of severe harm, even if complete and definitive proof of harm cannot be had in each individual case.

I would be surprised if case law doesn't support that general idea. I'm sure the courts have had to deal with probabilistic situations before.

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Re:California jury says Bayer must pay $2B to couple in Roun... by carlmr on Tuesday May 14, 2019 @01:29PM (#19911568)

For an individual no, but with enough data points, which probably exist since roundup exists long enough, you could make a reliable prediction where it came from.

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Re:California jury says Bayer must pay $2B to couple in Roun... by bluGill on Tuesday May 14, 2019 @03:30PM (#19913022)

But if there are enough data points and they show roundup doesn't cause cancer above the population baseline, if someone who used roundup gets cancer we should in turn conclude roundup wasn't the cause.

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