In a bellwether trial, a federal jury found Monsanto liable for causing blood cancer in a man who used its Roundup weedkiller, and awarded the man, Edwin Hardeman, more than $80 million in damages, said The Recorder. Bayer, the new owner of Monsanto, plans to appeal and said in a statement, “The verdict in this trial has no impact on future cases and trials as each one has its own factual and legal circumstances.”
The jury verdict in San Francisco marks the second time Monsanto has lost a lawsuit saying Roundup is carcinogenic. A California state court jury found against Monsanto last year. A new Roundup trial is scheduled to open on Thursday in Alameda County Superior Court, said The Recorder. The Hardeman trial was the first of about 800 lawsuits coordinated in multi-district litigation in federal court in California.
Monsanto says Roundup is safe to use. Many regulatory agencies agree, although the UN International Agency for Research on Cancer said in March 2015 that glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup, is “probably carcinogenic to humans.” Glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide in the world, largely because many varieties of GMO crops, including corn, soybeans, cotton, and sugar beets, were engineered to tolerate doses of the weedkiller.