A California jury ordered Monsanto to pay a record $2 billion in damages to a couple who was diagnosed with cancer after using the company’s weedkiller Roundup.
“We were finally allowed to show a jury the mountain of evidence showing Monsanto’s manipulation of science, the media, and regulatory agencies to forward their agenda despite Roundup’s severe harm to the animal kingdom and humankind,” said Michael Miller, an attorney for Alva and Alberta Pilliod.
The jury ruled that Monsanto—the German pharmaceutical giant Bayer acquired that in 2018—was liable for the Pilliods’ non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL), the third such ruling in less than a year.
“We’ve been fighting cancer for nine years. It was caused by Roundup. We can’t do the things we used to do and we really resent Monsanto for that,” said Alberta Pilliod at a press conference following the verdict.
According to The Guardian, the “latest verdict is the largest by far and will increase pressure on Bayer, which has suffered share price drops in the wake of the verdicts and is now facing similar lawsuits from thousands of cancer patients, survivors, and families who lost loved ones to NHL.”
BREAKING: #Monsanto hit with historic $2.055 billion verdict losing third #roundup trialhttps://t.co/01lcTT1Lmb
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) May 13, 2019
Having worked on this issue for several years, I'm going to say this again: STOP USING ROUNDUP BY MONSANTO. https://t.co/9dBjl9TYZO
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) May 14, 2019
Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, stated that the California jury’s decision, “shows that there’s more than enough evidence that Roundup is an environmental and public health nightmare.”
“But rather than act on this body of evidence,” said Hauter, “the EPA continues to side with the chemical industry and recently announced it will continue to allow glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, to be sold. It’s time to ban this dangerous herbicide.”
Reference: The Mind Unleashed
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