Roundup Lawsuit

Roundup is the most widely-used weed and grass killer across the world – so much that Monsanto earns close to $5 billion in revenue each year. Its main ingredient, glyphosate, acts by disrupting the activity of some essential plant enzymes. Combined with the superior resistance of the genetically modified (GMO) plants produced by them, Monsanto, sells countless superior crops with high yields worldwide.

During the last decade, many studies showed that exposure to glyphosate is responsible for causing cancer, including a lethal form of leukemia (blood cancer) called non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The weed killer may also cause other forms of lymphoma as well.

Professional workers who are constantly exposed to this chemical, such as farmers, park employees, and gardeners have been never warned about this risk, and never knew they had to wear protection to avoid breathing it.

Residues of glyphosate can contaminate water and food, and reach dangerous levels in the human body. In 2016, The Alliance for Natural Health USA found high concentrations of this substance in breakfast cereals, eggs, and other common food products. 

Many U.S. attorneys started filing Roundup litigations on behalf of plaintiffs who want to hold Monsanto responsible for the dangerous side effects of the controversial weed killer. Lawyers argue that countless people may have been diagnosed with cancer after being exposed to glyphosate.

After plaintiff Edward Hardeman (Case No. 3:16-cv-00525) filed the first Roundup lawsuit in February 1, 2016,  filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, many victims of Monsanto’s lethal product followed and decided to sue for damage. Eventually, in October 2016, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) consolidated all these cases in the in the Northern District of California /MDL No. 2741 — In RE: Roundup Products Liability MDL) forming a new Mass Tort Litigation.

In May 2016, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) pulled offline a report where glyphosate was reported to be “not likely to be carcinogenic to humans.” Together with another 13 documents, the 86-pages report disappeared after just a few hours since it was published, and the agency later claimed it withdrew it since it was still unfinished, although the word “FINAL” was clearly printed on every single page.

On March 14, 2017, according to documents included in a case filed in a federal court in San Francisco, the whole research was allegedly ghostwritten by Monsanto itself. The company tried to conceal Roundup’s dangerousness in what really looked like a giant conspiracy. Some senior officers in the EPA, however, disagreed with the allegedly false safety assessment and quickly removed the document from the website. On the other hand, in one of its previous reports, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified the herbicide as “probably carcinogenic to humans (Group 2A),” stemming a large controversy.