Opening arguments began Monday in a landmark trial against the chemical giant Monsanto. The plaintiff, a former groundskeeper named DeWayne Johnson, alleges that his ongoing exposure to Monsanto’s flagship weedkiller Roundup contributed to his 2014 diagnosis of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Johnson may have as little as a few months to live.
Johnson says that he was required to apply up to 50 or 60 gallons of Roundup at a time during his tenure as integrative pest manager at the Benicia School District in Benicia, California. Johnson’s attorneys argue that Monsanto knew of the health risks associated with glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup, and worked to keep that information from the public.
The plaintiff’s attorneys drew on internal emails to make their case, including one email in which one Monsanto employee advised others on how to publicly discuss Roundup: “[Y]ou cannot say that Roundup is not a carcinogen … we have not done the necessary testing on the formulation to make that statement.”
They also cited internal Monsanto emails from the 1990s, which discuss a series of studies by a genotoxicity expert who raised concerns about Roundup’s possible risks to human health. The emails indicate that after seeing the findings, Monsanto considered finding a new expert to conduct the studies.
Monsanto’s lawyer George Lombardi maintained in his opening statement that the “scientific evidence is overwhelming that Glyphosate-based products do not cause cancer.”
Several countries have banned or restricted the use of glyphosate because of its possible risks to human health and the environment. Monsanto was acquired for $66 billion by the German chemical company Bayer in May.