They are a german corporate heavyweight under pressure in 2019 its blockbuster merger with us rival monsanto has seemingly backfired. Its facing one of the deepest crises in its 155 year history. Of bowmans own fortunes Christa Bauman and his colleagues on the board miscalculated the risks they should have said no the deal is off the combat units are still in it at the center of the controversy the retailer roundup and its active ingredient life did monsanto conceal the health risks as lawsuits maintained monsantos effectively made a business out of poisoning people and getting away with it. Although u. S. Courts have already ruled against bayer ordering it to pay more than 2000000000. 00 in damages it insists life is it is safe roundup does not cause cancer. Beyers annual Shareholders Meeting in april 2900. 00 a day of reckoning for c. E. O. And Supervisory Board chairman be on the bench they are stock price has fallen nearly 50 percent since its acquisition of seed and chemical giant monsanto shareholders are going ballistic. The board takes cover. In his opening speech belmonts tone is defensive because the Market Reaction has been exaggerated in our opinion the current stock price does not reflect the true value of our Company Rules but we understand the prevailing sense of uncertainty. Belmont is unapologetic finding fault neither his own actions nor in those of the board as in previous years environmental activists are making noise outside bayer from eating fish but i bet it was i to them that they are is as bad as monsanto arguably the company with the worst image in the world. Thanks i said i feel as if the board absolutely made a mistake and it totally misjudged the risks that monsanto was bringing into the marriage especially in view of the lawsuits that have begun piling up often. Under normal circumstances a top manager would be accused of blatant failure. Says khans class for. Fun for me im very concerned for my family my son works in a department that beyers liquidating he has 3 daughters so also in this regard the future doesnt look good. And he said life is saved and how its evaluated scientifically is one thing but im here today as a shareholder who was horrified by the plunge in the buyers share price and i want to hear what they have to say that. Im here to see the face of a man who was idiotic enough to buy a poison manufacturer but still made so much money in the process of. His day of reckoning his common shareholders take the unprecedented step of backing a no confidence motion in belmont and the Management Board the censure has no legal consequences but its a stinging rebuke it makes me on obama the 1st serving chief executive of a daks Listen Company to lose a vote of no confidence all because of monsanto. Today or buy a pig in the poke with its acquisition of the company in st louis was it aware of the legal risks or did the german giant take them on board expecting profits to outweigh potential legal damages profits from genetically modified seeds engineered to be used in conjunction with monsantos flagship product roundup. No problem. In gracies or soon or with a shot of around 4 gripes. With. A groundbreaking verdict in the 1st trial against monsanto alleging roundup causes cancer the jury awards 289000000. 00 to do Wayne Johnson a former School Grounds keeper from San Francisco subsequently a judge will reduce the award to. 78000000 but johnsons lawyer feels vindicated. And. He was using a stronger pressure hose sprayer so he was spraying 150 gallons every morning. And so he is exposure was pretty extreme and prior to his exposure his skin was perfect he was healthy he had no other chemical exposures but within 2 years after starting this sort of massive sprang he developed this incredibly. Aggressive cancer that ultimately is going to take his life. Johnson suffers from it on hodgkins lymphoma a malignant cancer that forms in the lymphatic system he wants this case to serve as a precedent you know im glad to be here to be able to help with the cause is way bigger than me sole readers they will start to. Get the attention that it needs to get right supposed to make a good choice. Bayer has appealed this and every Subsequent Court ruling thats found roundup caused cancer it maintains the decisions reached by the jury failed to acknowledge Scientific Research that supports life to save use. By for i feel sorry for mr johnson i have tremendous sympathy for what he and his family are going through when i look at the jury verdict the decision its its wrong and it doesnt change the science it doesnt change those 40 years of safe use the 800 tests of the Agricultural Health study it doesnt change the science obviously the science didnt resonate with the jury we want to understand why because we need we need to do a better job explaining the science of people understand the question say based products are safe. Debate has been raging for years over the safety of this it. Opinion is divided and the science is not settled. Internal Corporate Communications reveal monsanto has employed deceptive tactics to try to win the debate the socalled monsanto papers were released to the public through civil trials of 2017 journalist carrie gilham examine the documents. These are discovery documents that monsanto was forced to turn over to the plaintiffs and the litigation and so far monsanto itself says that its turned over about 10000000. 00 pages of documents and this is really been eyeopening because weve seen so much evidence of how the company has worked to hide the risks of its products. Rhonda and its active ingredient life to see. If you substances have been the subject of so many Clinical Trials tests on animals Laboratory Studies and analyses but revelations and not once confidential monsanto papers called the objective of the of these studies into serious question. When monsanto says there are 800. 00 studies showing that it is safe we have no idea how many of those studies might be authentic independent scientific studies we know that the scientific literature has been corrupted. Monsantos p. R. Strategists work just busy in the United States from their headquarters in st louis to devise global campaigns for their top selling chemical lifeless it. Unsealed internal documents show how early on monsanto exerted pressure to even get federal approval for the use of glad to see for example from the u. S. Environmental Protection Agency the e. P. A. In the 1901990 s. The e. P. A. Decided to just go along with monsanto and overrule its. Toxicologist but it was very controversial and in the final decision and which e. P. A. Determined they would classify glyphosate as not likely to be carcinogenic some of their own scientists refused to sign off on that. So they are free legal limitations thanks to round up so its a sure shot here as long ago as 996 ads like this one were branded misleading by the new York State Attorney general. By metal concern was you know the broad advertising claims that months to was advanced in those days that somehow the roundup product was entirely safe biodegradable. You know safe for pets and children. And you know less dangerous than table salt we knew otherwise frankly they were pretty good under federal law for making claims like that they knew the dangers of roundup but yet they were trying to sell to consumers in new york and in other states a different story. Ridgeway illinois. And. While monsanto was forced to alter advertising in new york its continued to market roundup is entirely safe and other u. S. States. Across the country roundup remains a mainstay of Agricultural Production like here at the local farmer cooperated. In the hot summer months no one wears protective clothing and theres little concern about skin contact with the herbicide. Little usually if i guess im ami im not stuck but im there and i go wash it off because sometimes it will start burning or. Some of it can hurt you but i dont think it would be necessarily wife threatening but. It appears most farmers are unperturbed by the debate over the safety of their weed killer over the decades monsanto and its products have made their work less labor intensive and help them succeed. Higher Living Standards thanks to advances in the technology and chemical property farming is no longer back breaking work. And bayer holds out the promise of further improvements for example at the Farm Progress show in boone iowa in august 28th. Billed as the Worlds Largest open air agricultural trade fair its the place to showcase the latest in farm technology. Many here are baffled by the 1st round of trial because. Its to be expected coming out of california where theyve got a world of tree huggers of people that do not understand business and while the going to judge going to jury out there to render a catastrophic award. And how is the world a better place im very wary yes we need this product and we do not need over 200000000. 00 lawsuits against monsanto are they are now but. I mean somebody has to pay that. This is home turf for the former bond santorum ploy that their new colleagues from bayer. Damage limitation is the name of the game here. They talk of individual cases and studies that exonerate like to say. I would look at that is one case doesnt change 800 scientific studies it doesnt change 40 years or years and were thoroughly supportive of the product but roundup does not cause cancer. But just how many of those studies were actually independent german toxicologists are among those who question the figure cited by bayer. By decent size. When it quotes this figure buyer is referring to all of the Pesticide Action Network studies carried out in some relation to the effects of life to say. But the debate on whether or not to ban it centers on whether its carcinogenic and that is the subject of 12 studies. The law says a pesticide must be considered carcinogenic if its found to be such by 2 studies in the case of life is safe there are 5 independent studies that confirm a significantly higher cancer incidence in mice. So there is more than enough evidence to meet the legal criteria. They are maintains that humans are never exposed to such high concentrations of animals and lab tests for a long time management said 3000 studies showed lifeless it was safe. That they revised that figure to 800. 00 today the company only refers to 107. 00 studies a cornerstone of its claims rests on the findings of the Agricultural Health study conducted in the u. S. It examined 45000 people who used life regularly over a period of 20 years and found no link with non Hodgkin Lymphoma. But since the release of the monsanto papers bayer has had to defend itself in the face of compromising evidence. In an email dating from 2003 the companys leading toxicologist says. You cannot say that roundup is not a carcinogen we have not done the necessary testing on the formulation to make that statement. When monsantos chief toxicologist says we cant say rounded does not cause cancer because we havent done the testing on it theres no multiple interpretations of that that is their own toxicologist saying yeah we actually havent tested the formulated product so we cant say it doesnt cost cancer because we dont know. What does bayer make of monsantos evaluation today but no one from management or the Supervisory Board is willing to grant us an interview they sent us a man with the title of president of Agricultural Affairs who tells us that to date hes had nothing to do with the monsanto merger. Distributed it should mean we based our evaluation on the documentation we received and on licensing documentation from around the world the ingredient has been licensed internationally for 40 years it has its merits and advantages and we didnt see a problem has to do with hunter and it will be missing. But monsanto evidently did in 2014 its leading toxicologist raised another red flag. What we have long been concerned about has happened. To say it is on for an eye arc review. Why concerned the International Agency for research on cancer is totally independent its verdict carries weight. I arc is part of the World Health Organization which in turn is a Specialized Agency of the United Nations australian professor lynne fritchey was on the panel of experts who study glyphosate ever since shes been targeted with Harsh Criticism from the agricultural industry. People can trust iraqis is a institution that has been doing this for a long time there are transparent procedures as to what. The groups need to do the groups are the best people in the world in this area they have no conflicts of interest and they look at their literature that available publicly that spirit viewed that quality and come up with a decision i are classified life or so it was probably carcinogenic to humans and yet life was it has remained on the market. Lynne fritchey says monsantos response to the findings was highly derogatory you know why that seems to imply that we did this on purpose that we were out to get one life cycle monsanto and thats not the case we were there to follow my x. Procedures to do you do a Fair Assessment of what the Scientific Evidence was and thats what we did and so its not its not right to say that weve this much something we looked at the evidence and we came up with a conclusion that we thought fit the evidence based. Shortly after iraqs classification of life or states license was up for renewal at the us environmental Protection Agency. Just before its experts convened one outspoken critic was excluded from the review. I mean i was shocked in november you know but the week or so after the president ial election i was informed you know i was being removed from the opinion of. The Agro Chemical industries may. One lobby group claimed he was biased and i agree with the International Agency for research on cancers review that concluded that there was evidence some evidence that clovis a was so seeded with non hudgins lymphoma in the people exposed to life a say. Without their formal Panel ConsultantPeter Infante the e. P. A. Renewed life a states license despite negative classification which bayer continues to dispute. Theres going to be a mischaracterization of remarkable tool that needs to stay in farm hands it was going to be dispersed in a fashion that was inappropriate and were preparing to make sure the public understand understands the safety of life for straight i think theyre extremely valid reasons do that. Yeah i. Do. With their marriage to monsanto managers at bayers headquarters and leave a commission didnt just acquire roundup and its estimated annual sales of some 3500000000 euros they also adopted monsantos defense of the main ingredient. Of using and not before we remain convinced that glyphosate is a safe product based on all this information the board of management consider the liability risk in connection with life to fail to be low at the same time were also aware of the tremendous importance of life estate for the global food supply. Bayer has battled fierce criticism from environmentalists but steel with monsanto has also been denounced in german boardrooms like here in frankfurt at the Asset Management group of us its main shareholder is deutsche bank. Yes im susie an award they wanted it too badly and if you invest a lot of time on something if this deal was more than 2 years in the making then theres often a tendency to say weve spent so much time and money so even if its all not perfect now we have to go ahead with it as source and. Christiane speaks for many bayer shareholders. Money out of this in the other the shareholders werent given enough information yet and above all they werent consulted on whether they approved of such a change to the company that runs from. This after all shifted the Company Focus from pharmaceuticals to Agro Chemicals and the shareholders should have had a say in that transformation its by no means clear whether that was legal or not. You financial man mr obama on thought he could transplant buyers good reputation over to monsanto by covering up its name with buyers but it wasnt that easy and now unfortunately monsanto has arrived in europe and germany. They are stock price and image have been weighed down by the negative Media Coverage in the us but its head office insists that its not clouding business. Of us all suppose look we can all read about whats happening out there but i can tell you that in the house we know business is doing very well the 1st quarter of 21000 went very well naturally the stock price isnt cause for celebration and that is primarily driven by the uncertainties arising from the legal disputes were facing in the us. And d. V. R. In was of course we were aware that there was a problem with monsanto reputation and image we knew them well as our competitor but we also felt that we could handle that via to justice and you can. Bayer believed that buying monsanto would boost its Balance Sheets the creating synergies and saving costs would generate higher profits but nobody knows how much us legal costs and potential compensation payments will dent those profits there appears to be little appetite among bayer employees to voice open criticism a former top tier employee does consent to speak anonymou