Multinational Bayer You must pay 2.25 billion US dollars To a man who filed a lawsuit against subsidiary Monsanto, the herbicide manufacturer round up, For his contract with A cancer Who is credited with using this Agricultural toxicity. This was decided by a popular jury.
This time the lawsuit was filed john Mckeveson, (49 years old), who appeared in Philadelphia courts to claim that the non-Hodgkin's lymphoma he was diagnosed with was the result of the use of the herbicide in his field for two decades, according to the American newspaper The Washington Post.
The trial against Bayer ended last Friday when the jury, in a unanimous verdict, found its Monsanto subsidiary guilty of negligence and failing to warn its users of the dangers of the herbicide, McEveson's lawyers, Tom Klein and Jason Itkin, said in a joint lawsuit. statement.
“The jury’s award of punitive damages sends a clear message that this multinational company needs systemic change,” they said.He described the ruling as “a 50-year prison sentence for misconduct by Monsanto.”
Bayer responded to the ruling with millions of dollars
Pharmaceutical giant Bayer issued a statement after the conviction confirming that it would appeal the ruling. He called it “unconstitutionally excessive.”
He said the jury's ruling was “contrary to the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence and global scientific and regulatory assessments” on… round up.
Claims are based on the ingredient glyphosate, Presented as Herbicides by Monsanto in 1974, which inhibits a specific enzyme in most plants, preventing them from growing.
Monsanto has also introduced genetically modified crops that are resistant to glyphosate.
The danger of using glyphosate in herbicide
the The US Environmental Protection Agency found in 2020 that “there are no risks of concern to human health when using glyphosate according to its current label.” And that “glyphosate is unlikely to be carcinogenic to humans.”
The European Commission said last year that “based on an assessment of all available information, there is currently no evidence to classify glyphosate as a carcinogen.”
the Pest Management Regulatory Agency Health Canada has approved its use, however The World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer found in 2015 that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans.”
More than $10 billion in lawsuits against Bayer
In 2020, Bayer agreed to pay about $10 billion in settlement to tens of thousands of plaintiffs. For accusing Roundup of causing non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, without admitting wrongdoing.
But since then, new lawsuits against him have continued with mixed results: He won a case on December 22 in California, but lost a case on December 5 in Pennsylvania and another on November 17 in Missouri, according to the company.
German pharmaceutical giant Bayer acquired the American agricultural chemicals company in 2018 monsanto, Inventor and producer round up.
