The US Environmental Protection Agency says the weed-killer glyphosate, better known as Monsanto's Roundup, is safe despite the thousands of lawsuits from people who say they gotten very sick from it.

Just last month, jury has found glyphosate-based weed killer Roundup was a "substantial factor" in causing a man's cancer, the second such court ruling against the herbicide.  Last September, a jury awarded a school custodian some US$287 Million after deciding that Monsanto's Roundup caused the man's cancer. 

And at the beginning of this month, the US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry - part of the US health department - published a 257-page report suggesting more research was needed

But the EPA says its decision to claim that glyphosate does not cause cancer is "consistent with the conclusions of science reviews by many other countries and other federal agencies".   But it does acknowledge that Roundup threatens an ecological danger.  According to a press release, it "is proposing management measures to help farmers target pesticide sprays on the intended pest, protect pollinators and reduce the problem of weeds becoming resistant to glyphosate."

The lawsuits are not lost on the shareholders of Bayer AG, which bought Monsanto for US $66 Billion last year - inheriting the fiscal consequences of the company's premier product as well.  They staged a full-out rebellion at a heated 13-hour meeting in Bonn last week, arguing that the management failed to see the company was exposing itself to billions of dollars of claims over the glyphosate-based weedkiller Roundup and cancer.  Management failed a confidence vote, but it was non-binding.  Still, a similar vote of no confidence in 2015 dislodged several top executives from Deutsche Bank, thus it remains to be seen how the shareholder pressure will impact Bayer.