Last week a U.S. judge in San Francisco made a ruling that will allow hundreds of lawsuits against Monsanto, the maker of weed killer Roundup, to move forward. Cancer victims and their families say that the agrochemical manufacturer knew that Roundup’s active ingredient glyphosate was a cancer risk, but failed to warn the public.
Monsanto has denied such a connection, pointing to hundreds of studies that have found glyphosate to be safe. Many government regulators have also rejected a link between the weed-killer compound and cancer.
While U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria said that evidence seems weak, he ruled that experts can testify at trial that Roundup could be linked to cancer.
First trial for groundskeeper dying of cancer
Lawyers for school groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson, who is dying of cancer, brought the first case. In 2014, Johnson was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma at age 42. The diagnosis came after the pest-control manager sprayed Roundup and Ranger Pro, another similar weed-control product, on the job for the San Francisco Bay Area school district.
During the trail July 9, Johnson’s attorneys asked a San Francisco jury to find that Monsanto’s weed killer Roundup likely caused his disease. After listening epidemiologists and other doctors speak about the science behind the claim that Roundup can cause non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, the judge ruled there was enough evidence to allow experts to make that claim at trial.
The lawsuit is one of hundreds of Roundup lawsuits now underway. If you think you may have case related to a weed killer product, please give Whitley Law Firm’s defective product attorneys a call 24/7 at (888) 760-4997.
