Bayer, the maker of Roundup weed killer has agreed to pay more than $10 billion to settle tens of thousands of claims alleging the product caused cancer. According to a report in The New York Times, this massive settlement comes even as the company continues to sell the products without adding any warning labels about the product’s safety or health risks.
The settlement, announced on June 24th, is among the largest settlements ever in U.S. civil litigation, which came after a series of complex negotiations. Clients will receive varying amounts depending on the damages they have suffered. Bayer inherited the lawsuits when it bought Monsanto for $63 billion. The company has repeatedly claimed that Roundup is safe.
Roundup Lawsuits
The settlement covers about 95,000 cases and includes $1.25 billion for potential future claims from Roundup customers who may develop a form of cancer known as non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Bayer still faces at least 30,000 claims from plaintiffs who have not agreed to join the settlement. Individuals will receive payments ranging from $5,000 to $250,000, the Times reports.
In 2018, a California state court awarded $289 million to Dewayne Johnson, a school groundskeeper, after concluding that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup weed killer caused the man’s cancer. Jurors said at the time that Monsanto had failed to warn consumers of the risk.
In March 2019, a jury awarded more than $2 billion to a couple who argued that decades of using Roundup caused their non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. That same year a San Francisco jury awarded $80 million to a homeowner who used the weed killer on his property. Judges later reduced all three of those awards and Bayer appealed the verdicts.
Glyphosate and Cancer
Glyphosate was introduced in 1974, but it became the number one weed killer used after Monsanto, in 1996, developed genetically modified seeds that could survive Roundup’s concentrated attacks on weeds. In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, an arm of the World Health Organization, announced that glyphosate could “probably” cause cancer. Monsanto and now Bayer, have continually denied those findings.
But the fact remains that lawsuits against these dangerous products continue to be filed. People who use these products on a daily basis – be it, homeowners, gardeners, or groundskeepers – continue to develop cancer. Our product defect attorneys are determined to fight for our clients who have suffered similar consequences from using Roundup weed killer and hold the manufacturers accountable. Consumers deserve safe products. We deserve to know which products are dangerous and could harm our health. It is unconscionable for Bayer to continue making and marketing its products without posting any warnings about the cancer risk.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/business/roundup-settlement-lawsuits.html
