The Monsanto corporation’s most notorious product has again been found guilty of causing a man’s cancer. Dealing another major blow to Bayer, who bought Monsanto in 2018, a San Francisco jury has unanimously ruled that Roundup and its primary ingredient glyphosate were the likely cause of a defendant’s cancer.
Edwin Hardeman, a 70-year-old Sonoma County, California resident had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, which he claimed was the result of decades of normal usage of Roundup on his ranch property.
Less than one year ago, a different jury in the case of DeWayne Johnson found Monsanto guilty of malice in failing to adequately inform users of the dangers of long-term exposure to the widely used herbicide. Johnson, a California public school groundskeeper was also diagnosed with terminal non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Johnson was originally awarded $289 million, but another court later reduced that amount to $78 million.
This is the second trial now to arrive at this very serious conclusion, and there are over 11,000 more cases already filed against Monsanto.
In a responding statement, Bayer admitted to being disappointed with the verdict, replying, “we continue to believe firmly that the science confirms that glyphosate-based herbicides do not cause cancer,” saying that the second stage of this trial, “will show that Monsanto’s conduct has been appropriate.”
As noted by the Washington Post, “many government regulators have rejected a link between cancer and glyphosate. Monsanto has vehemently denied such a connection, saying hundreds of studies have established that the chemical is safe.”
This story has been a long time coming for Monsanto, and now Bayer, and consumer sentiment is beginning to reflect public concern over this toxic nature of Roundup and glyphosate. It is reported that retail giant Costco is set to be the first major retailer to remove all glyphosate products from its shelves.
Reluctance by Bayer to acknowledge the possibility that this product is so dangerous is understandable given the amount of money at stake. Bayer acquired Monsanto in 2018 for $63 billion, and the flagship product glyphosate is the world’s most used, and overused, agricultural product.
Glyphosate was once only used on a small-scale, because while it is toxic to many weeds, it also kills many crops. However, in the 1990s, Monsanto began introducing genetically modified crops that were resistant to the herbicides, such as Roundup Ready corn and soybeans. Since then, its use has skyrocketed, increasing fifteen-fold since 1996. In 1987, only 11 million pounds of the chemical were used on U.S. farms, but now nearly 300 million pounds of glyphosate are applied each year. [Newsweek]
Glyphosate, a now court-confirmed carcinogen, is found in a startling amount of foods and food products.
This article (Another Jury Finds Monsanto’s ROUNDUP Weedkiller Caused a Man’s Cancer) originally created and published by Waking Times and is published here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Alex Pietrowski and WakingTimes.com.
