04 November 2023 , 21:26
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A jury has awarded $332million to a man who sued the chemical giant Monsanto Co after he contended that his cancer was due to his use of Roundup weedkiller for decades.
A Superior Court jury in San Diego, California, awarded damages on Tuesday in a lawsuit filed by 57-year-old Mike Dennis of Carlsbad. He was diagnosed in 2020 with a rare type of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
His lawsuit maintained that his illness was linked to Roundup's active ingredient, glyphosate. Dennis had treatment and has been in remission for nearly three years but there is no cure, Adam Peavy, one of his attorneys, told KNSD-TV.
"His doctors have told him it's going to come back and we're just waiting to see if that happens," Peavy said. The jury found that Monsanto, which is now a division of pharmaceutical and biotechnology giant Bayer, failed to provide warnings of Roundup's risks.
But jurors also ruled partially in Bayer's favour. They found the product design wasn't defective and the company wasn't negligent, and Dennis was awarded $7 million in compensatory damages and $325 million in punitive damages.
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His lawsuit maintained that his illness was linked to Roundup's active ingredient, glyphosate (AFP via Getty Images)In a statement, Bayer said it believes "we have strong arguments on appeal to get this unfounded verdict overturned and the unconstitutionally excessive damage award eliminated or reduced".
"There were significant and reversible legal and evidentiary errors made during this trial," Bayer added.
Bayer bought Monsanto for $63 billion in 2018 and has been trying to deal with thousands of claims and lawsuits related to Roundup. In 2020, Bayer announced it would pay up to $10.9 billion to settle some 125,000 filed and unfiled claims.
Three years ago, a major study in the US of over two dozen hummus brands found traces of glyphosate - a chemical used in weedkiller brands such as Roundup that was found to have caused cancer in some people.
Glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide in the world and sold under the brand name Roundup, owned by chemical giant Monsanto.
Toxicologist Alexis M. Temkin said consumers should opt for organic hummus to avoid harmful levels of glyphosate.