US jury orders Monsanto to pay $290mn to cancer patient over weed killer
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 11 (AFP) From “Agent Orange” and DDT to genetically modified crops, Monsanto has long been associated with controversial chemicals, but a US court order for it to pay damages because one of its herbicides may cause cancer could open the door to thousands more claims against the company.
A California jury on Friday ordered the US agrochemicals giant -- which was taken over by Germany's Bayer in June -- to pay nearly $290 million in compensation to a groundskeeper diagnosed with cancer after he repeatedly used Monsanto's weed killer, Roundup.
The lawsuit built on 2015 findings by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the UN World Health Organization, which classified Roundup's main ingredient glyphosate as a probable carcinogen.
Founded in 1901 in St. Louis, Missouri, Monsanto early on made the artificial sweetener saccharin. The company began producing agrochemicals in the 1940s.
Monsanto was one of the companies which produced a defoliant dubbed “Agent Orange,” which has been linked to cancer and other diseases, for use by US forces in Vietnam but denies responsibility for how the military used it. The company also made insecticide DDT.
After it was introduced in the United States as Roundup in the mid1970s, the use of the glyphosate -which is sprayed on food crops but also widely used outside of agriculture, such as on public lawns and in forestry -- soared across the globe.
The company began genetically modifying plants, making some resistant to Roundup.
There was a dramatic jump after the introduction in 1996 of genetically engineered “Roundup Ready” crops, such as soybean and maize, that survive glyphosate while it kills weeds.
Glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide in the world, produced by an array of companies since Monsanto's exclusive patent expired in the year 2000.
It is the subject of conflicting scientific studies as to whether it causes cancer.
The herbicide has been accused of damaging the environment, contributing to the disappearance of bees and being an endocrine disruptor.