EDINBURGH — When I was a student at Rhodes University in the late 1980s, Benson & Hedges supplied free cigarettes at every student function I attended. It was hardly surprising I ended up addicted to, not any type of cigarette, but Benson & Hedges. Later, in the 1990s, when I worked as a journalist, I sat in a smoky newsroom with an ashtray on either side of my keyboard, sometimes burning two B&H cigarettes at once. It took a long time for the world to slowly come to terms with the idea that smoking causes cancer and kills, as it did my grandmother. Now it would be inconceivable that a university would allow a company to supply addictive products freely to its students, while workplaces must, by law, be smoke-free. Roundup, a common weedkiller found in garden centres and supermarkets, has been a concern for many years, but only now is there compelling evidence being presented in court that it causes cancer.  The Wall Street Journal reports on the case that could lead to a big bill for Bayer AG, though the real cost is all those lives lost while the multinational reaped the profits. – Jackie Cameron

Jury Finds Bayer's Roundup Weedkiller Caused Man's Cancer

By Sara Randazzo and Ruth Bender

(The Wall Street Journal) SAN FRANCISCO — A jury found that a man developed cancer from exposure to Roundup weedkiller he used in his yard, in the second case to go to trial over the alleged harms of the popular Bayer AG product.

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