Weedkiller safe claim after firm pay out £226m
14 Sunday Mail The makers of a weedkiller have insisted British consumers are safe to use the product after a US jury backed a groundsman’s claim that it contributed to his terminal cancer.
Dewayne Johnson was awarded £ 226million by a court in San Francisco, who found Monsanto failed to warn of the risks of using Roundup.
Deway ne , 4 6 , was diagnosed with nonHodgkin’s lymphoma in 2014.
Monsanto vice president Scott Partridge claimed hundreds of studies showed the herbicide does not cause cancer and said the firm would appeal the verdict.
Roundup contains the world’s most widely used herbicide, glyphosate. The substance is contained in commonl y used UK agriculture products.
Environmentalists say the weedkiller is linked to cancer, although the claim is strongly denied by manufacturers and the EU have approved the chemical for use. In 2016, a joint report by the World Health Organisation and the UN said there was “some evidence of a positive associat ion between glyphosate exposure and r isk of non- Hodgkin’s lymphoma” but the only large study of high quality found “no evidence of an association”.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer, who are part of the WHO, said glyphosate was a “probable human carcinogen”.
A UK Government spokesman said: “Our priority is the protection of people and the environment. Decisions on the use of pesticides should be based on a careful scienti f ic assessment of the risks.”