(CNN) — A Pennsylvania jury returned a $2.25 billion verdict against Monsanto and its parent company, Bayer, after deciding that its product… Herbicide Roundup The plaintiff's lawyers announced that he had caused a man to develop cancer.
John McIveson, 49, who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, has sued the company, saying he developed cancer after using Roundup on his property for two decades, his lawyers at the law firm Kline & Specter said in a statement. .
A jury returned its verdict, including $2 billion in punitive damages, in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas on Friday after concluding that the report “defective product causes cancer, that Monsanto was negligent and that Monsanto failed to warn of the risks.” The law firm said pesticides Herbs.
“The jury’s unanimous verdict was to convict Monsanto of 50 years of misconduct and declare that its misconduct was a reckless disregard for human safety and a substantial cause of John Mckeveson’s cancer,” Mckeveson’s attorneys, Tom Klein and Jason Itkin, said in a statement.
Bayer, which acquired Agrochemical giant Monsanto in 2018He said he will appeal the ruling and believes he will be able to vacate or reduce the “unconstitutionally excessive damages award.”
“While we have great sympathy for the plaintiff in this case, we are confident that our products can be used safely and are not carcinogenic, based on the evaluations of specialized regulatory bodies around the world,” the company said. The company said in a statement on Friday.
Hundreds of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma patients began suing Monsanto after a 2015 World Health Organization report suggested that glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup, can cause cancer.
The report, prepared by the International Agency for Research on Cancer of the World Health Organization, says that glyphosate “ Possibly carcinogenic to humans “.
But Monsanto continued to sell the herbicide. He asserts that Roundup does not cause cancer and refutes the International Agency for Research on Cancer report, saying he is outnumbered by studies that say glyphosate is safe.
the US Environmental Protection Agency It said in 2020 that it had found “no risk to human health when using glyphosate according to its current label” and that the chemical was “unlikely to be a human carcinogen.” European Commission It was also identified last year “There is no evidence to classify glyphosate as a carcinogen.”
The American Cancer Society says so The cause of most lymphomas is unknownBut non-Hodgkin lymphoma has been linked to risk factors, including exposure to certain chemicals found in herbicides and pesticides. The organization indicated that the investigation “to clarify” possible links is still ongoing.
Over the years, the Germany-based company has paid more than $10 billion in settlements to thousands of cancer patients and their heirs who sued Monsanto, alleging that Roundup causes non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and accusing the company of failing to adequately warn consumers about the risk of… .
Very few Roundup lawsuits have ever gone to trial. In the cases of cancer patients Dwayne Johnson, Edwin Hardman, and Alpha and Alberta Pilliod, juries sided with the plaintiffs and awarded them tens of millions (and even billions) of dollars, although judges later reduced those amounts, saying they were too excessive.
CNN's Holly Yan and Danny Freeman contributed to this report.
