DIY STORE TO REVIEW WEEDKILLER SALES AFTER COURT CASE
H OMEBASE is to review its range of weedkiller products after a man dying of cancer sued the manufacturer and is being awarded £226m.
Dewayne Johnson, 46, was awarded the sum after a California jury ruled on Friday that the Monsanto’s “Roundup” product resulted in him developing non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.
A former pest control manager for a California county school system, Mr Johnson applied the weed killer up to 30 times a year.
In court, doctors for the plaintiff claimed that the former school groundsman has just months to live.
“The simple fact is he is going to die. It’s just a matter of time,” his legal team told the jury in his opening statement last month.
A spokesperson for Homebase has now told Sky News: “We have confirmed that we will be reviewing our range of weedkiller products.”
Mr Johnson’s lawyers told how he used Roundup and a similar product also made by Monsanto, Ranger Pro, while he worked.
Roundup is widely available in garden centres in Britain.
It contains a herbicide called glyphosate, which has reportedly been hugely controversial in the EU.
Monsanto denies that glyphosate, the world’s most widely used herbicide, causes cancer and says decades of scientific studies have shown the chemical to be safe for human use.
They have strenuously denied that their product Roundup caused cancer in Mr Johnson and have said they will appeal the verdict.
“Roundup has been safe for four decades and will continue to be safe. There is no credible scientific evidence that demonstrates otherwise,” a spokesman for Monsanto told Press Association.
“It is completely and totally safe and the public should not be concerned about this verdict, it is one that we will work through the legal process to see if we can get the right result. The science is crystal clear.”
Following the judgment, Mr Johnson, clearly emotional, was seen smiling and hugging his lawyers.
He is the first of hundreds of claimants who say the weedkiller caused cancer.
Chemicals giant Monsanto, a unit of Bayer AG, faces more than 5,000 similar lawsuits across the United States.
The jury at San Francisco’s Superior Court of California deliberated for three days before finding that Monsanto had failed to warn Mr Johnson and other consumers of the cancer risks posed by its weed killers.
It awarded $39m in compensatory and $250m in punitive damages.
“This jury found Monsanto acted with malice and oppression because they knew what they were doing was wrong and doing it with reckless disregard for human life,” said Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Mr Johnson’s lawyer.
“This should send a strong message to the boardroom of Monsanto.”
Mr Johnson’s case, filed in 2016, was fast-tracked for trial due to the severity of his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph system that he alleges was caused by Roundup and Ranger Pro, another Monsanto glyphosate herbicide.
The World Health Organization’s cancer arm in 2015 classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans.”