The Legal Examiner Affiliate Network The Legal Examiner The Legal Examiner The Legal Examiner search instagram avvo phone envelope checkmark mail-reply spinner error close The Legal Examiner The Legal Examiner The Legal Examiner
Skip to main content

Today, there are over 10,000 pending lawsuits against Bayer-owned Monsanto that claim its glyphosate-based herbicide weed killer, Roundup, is causing plaintiffs cancer. Glyphosate-based herbicides are by far the most popular herbicide in the United States and are used worldwide. Because of its alleged role in causing cancer, however, several countries have issued outright bans on the chemical. While the U.S. hasn’t issued a nationwide ban, some cities and counties have taken it upon themselves to do so as well.

Despite these lawsuits and bans, however, Monsanto executives continue to reject the notion that Roundup is carcinogenic. To make things more complicated, multiple agencies considered to be credible have come to conflicting conclusions as to whether Roundup is a contributing factor in these cancer diagnoses.

On April 30, 2019, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a report claiming that research “continues to find that there are no risks to public health when glyphosate is used in accordance with its current label and that glyphosate is not a carcinogen.” Earlier that month, however, a toxicological profile released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services supported a risk assessment completed by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in 2015. In the IARC assessment, glyphosate was categorized as a Group 2A “probable carcinogen” after experts from 11 different countries met up to review 1,000 studies.

The EPA’s backing of glyphosate as safe for users also contradicts three federal Roundup cases that have ruled against Monsanto. In 2018, a California jury ordered Bayer to pay $289 to a school groundskeeper who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) after regularly using Roundup. In March 2019, a separate federal jury awarded $80 million to 70-year-old Edwin Hardeman, who was diagnosed with NHL after using Monsanto’s weed killer on his property for over two decades. Most recently in May 2019, another California state court jury ordered Bayer to pay an astonishing $2 billion dollars to an elderly couple diagnosed with NHL after years of substantial Roundup use.

If you or a loved one has developed cancer after being exposed to glyphosates, please call Pogust Millrood toll free at (888) 348-6787 or direct to our Pennsylvania office at (610) 941-4204 to see if you are entitled to seek damages.

One Comment

  1. Gravatar for cynthia hawkins
    cynthia hawkins

    Notice the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said “continues to find that there are no risks to public health when glyphosate is used in accordance with its current label and that glyphosate is not a carcinogen.” Key words "used in accordance with its current label". It also does not say when mixed with other chemicals would not become carcinogenic. The old direction label on Roundup is different than the one that has been on it the past few years. I used both the mix and ready to use. I have B cell NHL. The spots came up on my back, were I use to carry the tank. No previous cancers. No cancers in my family. I am under 60, with no auto immune disorders. Our home uses a well for all sources of water. Chickens were in the areas sprayed we ate the eggs. Worse my son used it on his watermelon patch at age 12-13. The old Weed Killer label said nothing about keeping children away. I mixed it for him and he sprayed. No I have over whelming guilt he might get B cell NHL like me.

Comments for this article are closed.