A Pennsylvania gardener will become a multimillionaire after a court found that Bayer’s Roundup herbicide caused him blood cancer.
The consumer giant will be forced to pay $2.25 billion to John McKivison, 49, who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2020, which he and his lawyers successfully argued was the result of two decades of Roundup use. .
The sum, divided into $2 billion in punitive damages and $250 million in compensatory damages, is believed to be one of the largest payouts ever received by an individual for corporate negligence.
Bayer said it plans to appeal the verdict and insists its product is not carcinogenic, despite a World Health Organization committee report saying otherwise.
But the company has already settled past disputes related to its product’s links to cancer for a total of more than $10 billion.
Roundup’s key ingredient is a chemical compound called glyphosate, which has been declared carcinogenic by the World Health Organization and the state of California. Bayer and Monsanto deny it
McKivison successfully argued that Monsanto and its parent company, Bayer, were “negligent” and “failed to warn about the dangers” of their product.
McKivison’s attorneys, Tom Kline and Jason Itkin, said: “The jury’s unanimous verdict was a conviction of 50 years of misconduct by Monsanto and a declaration that its misconduct was a reckless disregard for human safety and a substantial cause of John McKivison’s cancer.
Bayer vowed to overturn the verdict, calling the huge sum “unconstitutionally excessive,” adding that the verdict “conflicts with the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence and global scientific and regulatory assessments.”
Non-Hodgkin lymphoma is not a single disease, but rather a general term that encompasses more than 30 types, classified according to the type of lymphocyte, a white blood cell, that is involved.
This type of cancer can result from exposure to cancer-causing chemicals, such as glyphosate, the key herbicide ingredient.
NHL kills about a third of sufferers within five years of diagnosis.
While Mr. McKivison’s current health status is unknown, he was reportedly diagnosed with cancer in 2020.
The legal complaint accuses the company of negligence for failing to sufficiently test its product for carcinogenic ingredients and for failing to warn the public about potential dangers.
The court document said: ‘Had the defendants adequately disclosed the risks associated with exposure to Roundup, the plaintiff could have avoided the risk of developing cancer from exposure to Roundup by choosing not to use Roundup.
“Instead, defendants disseminated information that was inaccurate, false, and misleading and that did not accurately or adequately communicate the comparative severity, duration, and extent of the risk of injury associated with use and/or exposure to Roundup.”
Despite the latest Pennsylvania verdict, in addition to many others that have ruled in favor of consumers, Bayer continues to sell Roundup, which can be purchased in countless retail spaces, from Amazon to mom-and-pop home improvement stores.
The company insisted its product does not contain carcinogens, even after the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer said glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans‘ in 2015.
Two years later, California named glyphosate a cancer-causing ingredient under the state’s Proposition 65, which requires Roundup to carry a warning label if sold in California. However, that proposal was later revoked.
But, in April 2019, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reaffirmed that glyphosate does not cause cancer.
The personal care giant was still ordered to pay $2 billion in punitive damages and $250 million in compensatory damages to cover the harm caused to Mr. McKivison.
The company saying: ‘While we have great sympathy for the plaintiff in this case, we are confident that our products can be used safely and are not carcinogenic, based on assessments by expert regulators around the world.’
Glyphosate is marketed as a salt or as an odorless amber liquid.
Its original manufacturer, Monsanto, introduced it in 1974 as an effective way to kill weeds while leaving crops and plants intact. Bayer acquired Monsanto in 2018 in a $63 billion deal.
This is far from the first legal reckoning Bayer has had to face over charges that its product has caused cancer in its users.
In 2019, the San Francisco appeals court awarded a whopping $86 million to Alva and Alberta Pilliod of Livermore, who sued Bayer alleging they were diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma as a direct result of 30 years of using the lawn treatment based on glyphosate.
Bayer has denied claims that Roundup or its active ingredient glyphosate causes cancer. Pictured: Alva and Albert Pilliod, who won a lawsuit alleging that Roundup caused their cancer.
Dewayne ‘Lee’ Johnson (pictured) was awarded $289 million in damages in his lawsuit against agrochemical giant Monsanto.
The couple’s cancers are in remission, however they both underwent “long and painful treatments and are still suffering”, the court heard.
And in 2018, the terminally ill Dewayne Johnson, 46 years old at the time, won $289 million in a landmark verdict against Monsanto after a jury determined that the herbicide Roundup played a major role in causing his NHL. That sum was later reduced to about $78 million after the trial.
Johnson worked as a landscaper from 2012 to mid-2015, mixing and spraying hundreds of gallons of Roundup to keep grass and weeds under control.
One of Johnson’s lawyers, Timothy Litzenburg, then told DailyMail.com that Johnson would spray the product 30 to 40 times a year.
Despite wearing protective gear, Johnson said he often got drenched in the product. In one exposure accident, he testified that he was unable to shower for six hours.
The jury awarded Johnson $250 million in punitive damages and nearly $40 million in compensatory damages, bringing the total to $289 million. His case was the first to go to trial alleging a link to cancer from Roundup.
Non-Hodkin lymphoma begins in white blood cells called lymphocytes, a key facet of the body’s immune system. There are two main types of lymphocytes: B cells, which protect against bacteria and viruses by producing antibodies, and T cells, which destroy germs and abnormal cells.
B-cell lymphomas are more prevalent compared to T-cell lymphomas.
The precise mechanisms that lead to the development of various non-Hodgkin lymphomas are still unclear, although it appears that lymphocytes acquire the ability to proliferate rapidly and extensively, causing uncontrolled cell division that can lead to the formation of lymph nodes or cancerous tumors.