UPDATE: (May 2021) – Numerous courts throughout the country are beginning to schedule trial dates for RoundUp cases. Trials had previously been postponed in order for the parties to continue settlement discussions, and due to the COVID pandemic.
Bayer claims there are still over 40,000 plaintiffs nationwide asserting claims against them that have not been settled.
Here is a review the verdicts from the first three trials:
- Trial No.1 – $289.2 million (reduced to $78.5 million). The Judge reduced the punitive damages award on the basis it exceeded the maximum allowed by law. The $39.25 million compensatory damages award was not altered.
- Trial No. 2 – $85.3 million (reduced to $25.3 million). In reducing the award, the Judge wrote, “Based on the evidence that came in at trial, Monsanto deserves to be punished”, that the company’s conduct was “reprehensible, and that “The evidence easily supported a conclusion that Monsanto was more concerned with tamping down safety inquiries and manipulating public opinion than it was with ensuring its product is safe.” The $5.3 million compensatory damages award was not altered.
- Trial No. 3 – $2.055 billion (reduced to $86.7 million). In reducing the award, the Judge wrote, “In this case there was clear and convincing evidence that Monsanto made efforts to impede, discourage, or distort scientific inquiry and the resulting science”, and that the company’s conduct was “reprehensible”.
That’s an average of about $63.5 million per trial ($47.6 million per plaintiff) with only 18,400 cases to go. How many trials is it going to take for Bayer-Monsanto to do the right thing?
How Monsanto manipulates journalists and academics – Carey Gilliam – The Guardian (June 2, 2019).
“Monsanto’s own emails and documents reveal a disinformation campaign to hide its weedkiller’s possible links to cancer.”
Bayer Hunts Down Journalists – Dr. Mercola, D.O., Ph.D. – SGT Report (June 7, 2019). Bayer has opened an internal investigation into Monsanto’s “Surveillance Project” – “a collection of veritable hit lists compiled by Monsanto, containing hundreds of names and other personal information about journalists, politicians and scientists, including their opinions about pesticides and genetic engineering” “who were stalked by Monsanto”.
“We consider what we have seen so far to be completely inappropriate.”
– Matthias Berninger (Bayer – Head of Public Affairs and Sustainability)
UPDATE: (May 14, 2019) – Bayer ordered to pay $2B in Roundup cancer case!
An Oakland, California, jury awarded a couple $2 billion in punitive damages after concluding that their sustained exposure to Roundup, which they used for residential landscaping, was a “substantial factor” in their cancer diagnoses. The couple will receive an additional $55 million in compensatory damages for their pain and suffering and medical expenses.
One juror’s response to a Bayer lawyer who asked for feedback in the hallway of the courthouse after losing the trial: “I wanted you to get up and drink it.”
UPDATE: (March 28, 2019) – Bayer ordered to pay $81M in Roundup cancer case!
A federal jury has ordered Bayer to pay $81 million to a California man who said his use of the company’s Roundup weedkiller caused him to develop cancer.
The ruling is the latest against Bayer involving Roundup, which was developed by St. Louis-based Monsanto before the company was acquired by Bayer last year for $62.5 billion.
A San Francisco jury said Wednesday that the company is liable for the man’s non-Hodgkin lymphoma, according to Reuters. Edwin Hardeman was awarded $5.9 million in compensatory and $75 million in punitive damages.
READ MORE from Vince Brennan [St. Louis Business Journal]
UPDATE: (Jan. 15, 2019) – French authorities have banned the sale of a form of RoundUp (“RoundUp Pro 360”) following a court ruling that regulators failed to take safety concerns into account when clearing the widely used herbicide. German news source Spiegel has published a story that seems to indicate Bayer “clearly underestimated the litigation and reputational risks” when it acquired Monsanto and inherited the RoundUp litigation, going so far as to speculate on how it could “spell the end” for the company if it does not negotiate a settlement of some form.
MONSANTO ORDERED TO PAY $289,000,000.00 IN FIRST ROUNDUP CANCER TRIAL
UPDATE: (August 2018) – As reported by the New York Times, “a California jury on Friday found Monsanto liable in a lawsuit filed by a groundskeeper who said the company’s weedkillers, including RoundUp, caused his cancer”.
READ MORE from the New York Times.
UPDATE: (July 2018) – We have been following the first trial against Monsanto by a California Groundskeeper who has terminal cancer. DeWayne “Lee” Johnson, 46, sprayed hundreds of gallons of “RoundUp” during the 4 years he worked for a California school district. He now has lesions covering 80% of his body because of his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL).
“Within internal documents, the company Monsanto did itself make the link between its very popular weedkiller, Roundup, and cancer.” – The Brussels Times (Oct. 11, 2017) [Christopher Vincent]
“PAN, the Pesticide Action Network International, issued a 96-page report dated October 2016 titled ‘GLYPHOSATE’ that every person on the planet ought to be concerned about … .” –
Glyphosate Contaminates the Global Ecosystem – READ MORE
UPDATE: (March 2017) – “Newly unsealed court documents released earlier today seemingly reveal a startling effort on the part of both Monsanto and the EPA to kill and/or discredit independent cancer research.”
UPDATE: (Feb. 2017) – Judge Finally Drops Cancer Bomb on Monsanto – Fresno County (CA) Superior Court Judge Kristi Kapetan recently struck down Monsanto’s attempt to overturn California’s 2015 ruling to require cancer warnings on glyphosate.
Roundup has been associated with Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, a cancer that starts in the immune system. Studies have found higher rates of this cancer in farm-workers in Canada, Sweden, and the United States who were exposed to large amounts of Roundup:
- International Journal of Cancer (October 2008): Swedish study concluded that exposure to glyphosate doubled the risk of developing non-Hodgkin lymphoma within less than 10 years.
- Occupational and Environmental Medicine (September 2003): American study of over 3,400 farmworkers in the midwest found they were 60% more likely to have non-Hodgkin lymphoma after glyphosate exposure.
- Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers (November 2001): Canadian study found a dose-response relationship between glyphosate exposure and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in people exposed at least 10 days per year; the greater the exposure to glyphosate (‘RoundUp’), the higher the rate of NHL.
Our firm is currently investigating cases where individuals exposed to “RounUp” were subsequently diagnosed with one of the following sub-types of non-Hodgkin Lymphoma cancer:
- diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL),
- follicular lymphoma,
- anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL),
- hairy-cell leukemia (HCL)
- chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL),
- mantle-cell lymphoma (MCL),
- cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL)
- small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL)
If you or someone you know has been diagnosed with one of these sub-types of non-Hodgkin Lymphoma after exposure to “RoundUp”, contact us online or call us at 1-866-252-3535.
Roundup is a herbicide used to control many varieties of invasive exotic plants. Glyphosate, the primary ingredient in Roundup, inhibits a specific enzyme called EPSP synthase, which plants need to grow. Without EPSP synthase, plants are unable to produce other proteins essential to growth, so they wither and die over a period of days or weeks. Since most plants require EPSP synthase, almost all forms of vegetation succumb to Roundup.
Even before Roundup was approved in the 1970s, Monsanto hired a company called Bio-Test Laboratories to attest to the safety of Roundup. However, in 1976, a federal investigation of Bio-Test showed that the company was guilty of “routine falsification of data” in Roundup tests to downplay or hide links between glyphosate and cancer. In the end, a number of Bio-Test officials were convicted of fraud—but Roundup had already been approved.
In 1985, an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) committee found that Roundup may cause cancer, according to the New York Times. Six years later, the agency reversed itself after re-evaluating the study that it had based its original conclusion on. That same year, Monsanto hired Craven Laboratories to conduct additional testing on Roundup in an attempt to prove that glyphosate does not cause cancer. Again, investigations showed that Craven Laboratories tests on Roundup were deeply flawed and that data was falsified. Again, company officials were convicted of fraud in the matter.
Now the issue is back again. In March 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which is the cancer research arm of the World Health Organization (WHO), issued a report published in The Lancet Oncology which declared that the glyphosate contained in Roundup is “probably carcinogenic to humans”. A major scientific review published in April 2014 by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) suggests chemical pesticides—particularly glyphosate, the main active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup – play a major role in fueling the cancer epidemic; specifically, people exposed to Roundup have double the risk of developing non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL).
Non-Hodgkin lymphoma attacks the lymphatic system when lymphocytes, white blood cells that are part of the immune system, become cancerous. It can develop in any part of the lymphatic system, such as lymph nodes, the spleen, in bone marrow, or the digestive tract. There are more than 30 various sub-types of non-Hodgkin’s disease, and the treatment and prognosis for each type may result in different outcomes for individuals exposed to glyphosate.
Symptoms of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) from glyphosate exposure may include:
- Lymph Node Enlargement
- Swollen Abdomen
- Swelling in the Neck, Armpits or Groin
- Chest Pain
- Difficulty Breathing or Shortness of Breath
- Fever, Fatigue, Anemia or Tired Feelings
- Sudden Weight Loss
Those most at risk of developing cancer associated with heavy exposure to glyphosate-containing weed-killers include:
- Independent Farmers
- Commercial Farm Workers
- Professional Turf Managers
- Landscapers
- Horticulturists
- Agricultural Field Workers
- Gardeners (including nursery & garden center workers)
- Groundskeepers
- Parks & Recreation Workers
- Forestry Workers