Monsanto Ordered to Pay $289 million in Cancer Suit

Monsanto, as well as the EPA, have known for the past 35 years that its glyphosate-soaked 'food' cause cancer.

A former school groundskeeper who claimed he got terminal cancer from the weed killer Roundup has had a significant win in court.

Dewayne Johnson heard the verdict yesterday evening in a San Francisco courtroom.

Was the Roundup pro or Ranger pro design a substantial factor in causing harm to Mr. Johnson? Answer Yes," Judge Suzanne Bolanos said.

Johnson says he applied Roundup 20 to 30 times a year as a school groundskeeper. In 2014 Johnson was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma.

Johnson’s Attorney, Brent Wisner, argued that Monsanto - which recently merged with Bayer- ”has specifically gone out of its way to bully… and to fight independent researchers.”

His lawyer says the jury awarded Johnson 289 million dollars in damages.

"Monsanto for forty years has been taking the playbook back industry, ghostwriting science. Buying science, using all the different…strategies and illegal strategies to confuse the science, to blur the science and I'm so glad that this jury held them accountable," The plaintiff's attorney, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said.

Monsanto has long maintained that Roundup does not cause cancer and that regulators help ensure it is safe.

The Guardian reported that evidence presented included internal Monsanto emails that he said showed how the agrochemical company rejected critical research and expert warnings over the years while pursuing and helping to write favorable analyses of their products.

Monsanto knew about the cancer-causing effects of its best-selling herbicide more than 35 years ago, as did the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Both Monsanto and the EPA knew full well, at least as early as 1981, that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup herbicide, causes cancer in mammals. Earlier studies conducted during the late 1970s and early 1980s appear to have documented cancer-causing effects from glyphosate in rats, mice, and dogs, though this information was buried by Monsanto with the blessing of the EPA.

"The evidence shows that by 1981 both Monsanto and the EPA were aware of malignant tumors and pre-cancerous conditions in the test animals which were fed small doses of glyphosate in the secret feeding experiments," said Dr. Brian John for GM-Free Cymru, about the facts.

This case may pave the way for some kind of relief for the hundreds of other cases filed against the company in California courts alone.

The company plans to appeal.