Roundup lawsuits in the news

So far, there have been three trials – two in state courts and one in federal court.

On August 10, 2018, a man named Dewayne Johnson was awarded $289 million by a San Francisco jury. Johnson was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2014 after a sprayer broke and drenched him in Roundup. Johnson washed the Roundup off of him the best he could, but it wasn’t enough. Soon, he had lesions all over his hands, arms, lips, and legs. A biopsy determined he had terminal cancer.

In 2019, an Oakland couple was awarded $55 million in compensatory damages and $2 billion in punitive damages. The judge cut the total verdict to $86.7 million. This roundup lawsuit was filed by Alberta and Alva Pilliod who both developed cancer after using Roundup to kill weeds on their property for more than 30 years.

In the first federal Roundup lawsuit, Edwin Hardeman was awarded $80 million by a jury in 2019. The jury found that exposure to Roundup was a “substantial factor” in causing Hardeman’s cancer. In 2014, Hardeman was diagnosed with the same disease as Johnson – non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

The jury initially awarded $5 million for compensatory damages and $75 for punitive damages, however, a judge reduced the punitive damages to $20 million.

Bayer settled a class action lawsuit for misleading advertising

In March 2020, Bayer agreed to settle a proposed class action lawsuit for $39.5 million. According to Bloomberg, the class action suit alleged that Monsanto ran misleading ads that lied about the potential health risks to humans and animals.

The result of this lawsuit is a huge win for consumers. The company will be required to remove language from Roundup labels that says glyphosate only affects an enzyme found in plants. There is evidence that this is false and that glyphosate attacks both human and animal enzymes, adversely affecting gut bacteria.

The abstract from one NCBI paper explains how glyphosate adversely affects human enzymes. “Characteristics of celiac disease point to impairment in many cytochrome P450 enzymes, which are involved with detoxifying environmental toxins, activating vitamin D3, catabolizing vitamin A, and maintaining bile acid production and sulfate supplies to the gut.”

The same NCBI paper also mentions that fish exposed to glyphosate develop digestive problems reminiscent of celiac disease.

How Monsanto created Roundup and glyphosate

Glyphosate was synthesized by Monsanto in the early 1970s by a chemist named John Franz. Glyphosate was used as the main ingredient to create a brand-new weed killer called Roundup.  However, Roundup wasn’t officially launched as part of the official product line until three years later in 1973.

Monsanto Roundup was different from all their existing herbicides. Previous Monsanto herbicides selectively killed certain weeds and left crops untouched. However, glyphosate killed everything it contacted, including crops.

To prevent crops from being killed when farmers used Roundup, Monsanto began creating Roundup-resistant seeds like soybeans and canola. These seeds are genetically engineered to survive Roundup applications.

While glyphosate is the main ingredient in many products, Monsanto Roundup products include more than just one weed killer. There are products for landscape weeds, lawn weeds, bugs, driveway and patio weeds, and poison ivy and brush killers. There are also commercial concentrates available for use with a tank and sprayer – the same kind of equipment Dewayne Johnson was using when his sprayer broke and saturated his body with glyphosate.

Monsanto denies glyphosate causes cancer

To this day Monsanto denies that glyphosate causes cancer and claims decades of independent studies have proven Monsanto Roundup is safe for human use. However, a plethora of internal documents made public during Dewayne Johnson’s trial indicate that Monsanto was aware of Roundup’s carcinogenic potential.

Several emails that surfaced during the trial prove that Monsanto paid the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) to defend the company against claims that glyphosate is dangerous to human health. The ACSH has since posted dozens of blogs attacking scientists and groups that discuss the dangers of exposure to glyphosate.

Did weed killer cause your cancer?

Have you been diagnosed with cancer after using a weed killer like Roundup or any other glyphosate-based herbicide? If so, you might be entitled to a settlement.

The scientific evidence is pretty clear that glyphosate exposure is not safe for humans or pets. If you’ve been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma after using a weed killer product, contact an attorney right away to find out if you have a case.

Weed killer alternatives

While it’s convenient to just spray a substance over your garden or lawn to kill all the weeds, it’s not healthy for you, your family, or your pets. Instead, try these safer alternatives:

To kill weeds in an area where you want to grow vegetation:

Get some distilled white vinegar with 5% acidity. You can use up to 20% acidity for faster results. Fill a small spray bottle (32oz) and add a few drops of dish liquid to break the surface tension of the vinegar. This will make the vinegar stick to the weeds.

To kill weeds in an area where you never want anything to grow ever again:

Use the same vinegar mixture, but add table salt. Be sure it’s the cheap generic salt (iodized or not) and not sea salt, rock salt, or Epsom salt. These salts are all chemically different and only table salt will work.

Remember to only use table salt on areas where you don’t want anything to grow ever again. Add two cups of salt to one gallon of vinegar and mix in a sprayer. Add an optional teaspoon of dish soap and spray the mixture where needed.

Other toxic weed killer brands to avoid

The patent on glyphosate has expired; Monsanto isn’t the only company making glyphosate-based weed killer. The following products contain glyphosate and should be avoided:

• Spectracide Weed & Grass Killer
• Fertilome Killzall Weed and Grass Killer
• Bayer Crop Science
• Ortho GroundClear Weed & Grass Killer
• BioAdvanced DuraZone Weed & Grass Killer
• Roundup Extended Control Weed & Grass Killer Plus Weed Preventer
• Gordon’s Speed Zone Lawn Weed Killer
• Compare N Save Concentrate Grass & Weed Killer

Why is glyphosate weed killer still being sold?

For a while, California added glyphosate to the list of 900+ chemicals under Proposition 65. When a product contains a chemical listed under Prop 65, manufacturers are required to print a warning on all labels that the product contains a chemical known to the State of California to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity. The verbiage can vary, but the message must be clear.

California added glyphosate to the list on July 7, 2017 after the IARC declared it an animal carcinogen and a probable human carcinogen. However, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) disagreed.

The EPA performed their own comprehensive evaluation of glyphosate and found no link to cancer in humans or animals. The EPA announced it will no longer approve product labels with this claim.

Can the EPA’s evaluation be trusted? According to Monsanto’s internal documents revealed during three Roundup cancer trials, the EPA’s findings are questionable. In 2019 The Guardian reported that these documents show there was a “covert campaign to cover up the pesticide’s risks” and the documents “raised troubling questions about lax oversight of all pesticides by the Environmental Protection Agency and other regulatory agencies that are supposed to be protecting public health.”

Monsanto’s internal documents revealed:

• Monsanto never conducted any epidemiology studies to determine whether Roundup or glyphosate might cause cancer in humans.
  

• Monsanto refused to conduct long-term product safety studies.
  

• Monsanto was spending millions of dollars on secret PR strategies. In one year, Monsanto spent $17 million to fund ghostwritten studies and op-ed articles intended to destroy the scientists and organizations working hard to expose the dangers of glyphosate.
  

• In 2013, a Monsanto scientist emailed staff members about a paper he wrote. The Scientist asked the team to find an academic researcher willing to put his or her name on the paper to make it look like it didn’t come from Monsanto.
  

• In 2015, the US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry made plans to evaluate the toxicological profile of glyphosate. Monsanto internal documents revealed that company officials were worried about what the study would find and fought hard to get the EPA to delay the review. The release of this report was effectively delayed for three years.
  
  Worse, a former EPA pesticide division manager, Jess Rowland, revealed Monsanto’s sinister intentions. An email revealed that Rowland told a Monsanto regulatory affairs manager (regarding plans to review glyphosate), “if I can kill this I should get a medal.”
  
  The draft toxicological profile of glyphosate was finally released to the public in 2019 and states, “numerous studies reported risk ratios greater than one for associations between glyphosate exposure and risk of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma or multiple myeloma.”

Many environmental groups question the science used to approve glyphosate since the lab conditions don’t reflect the actual conditions farmers are exposed to while using Roundup and other products. The studies performed by Monsanto and its agencies were unrealistic.