Monsanto asked to pay cancer patient $289 mn
NEWDELHI: In a landmark verdict, a jury in the US has ruled that Monsanto’s Roundup and other glyphosate-based weedkillers are linked to cancer, and directed the agro-giant to pay $289 million in damages to a school groundskeeper who developed cancer.
The ruling is likely to have ramifications in countries like India, where glyphosate-based weedkillers are widely used.
Bayer, the German owners of Monsanto, said Friday’s verdict “is at odds with the weight of scientific evidence that the use of glyphosate is not associated with non-hodgkin’s lymphoma.”
“Bayer is confident based on the strength of the science, the conclusions of regulators around the world and decades of experience that glyphosate is safe for use and does not cause cancer when used according to the label,” it said. The company is planning to appeal the verdict.
“It is a landmark development in terms of the jury fixing responsibility on Monsanto and its negligence and given the discussion around glyphosate and its safety in India,” said Kavitha Kuruganti of the Alliance for Sustainable & Holistic Agriculture.
“It is important the pesticide regulators take note, it is one more evidence that it indeed causes health impacts, despite claims that it is safe,” Kuruganti added.
Environmentalists in India have argued that the indiscriminate use of glyphosate poses a grave challenge in the country, where the regulatory framework on herbicide and pesticide overuse and misuse is weak. In India, the consumption of glyphosate was 148 mn tonnes in 2014-15, the highest for any weedicide.
Poor regulation was in the spotlight in the deaths of over 40 farmers earlier this year in Maharashtra from pesticide poisoning. According to the Centre for Science and Environment, there were around 7,000 deaths in 2015 related to accidental intake of insecticides and pesticides in India. The fear is that increasing cultivation of genetically modified crops will promote the indiscriminate use of pesticides and herbicides like glyphosate. A 2017 study found that glyphosate use increased five times after introduction of GM crops in the US.
The use of the weedkiller is interlinked with the controversy surrounding GM crops. For example, a crop that has been modified to be tolerant to a particular herbicide, like Roundup, will survive spraying of that herbicide while all other plant life dies.
Dewayne Johnson, 46, who was awarded the damages by the jury in California, said he developed a deadly form of non-hodgkin’s lymphoma after spending years spraying large amounts of Monsanto’s Roundup and other glyphosate herbicide brands on school grounds.