Bayer AG, owner of chemical company Monsanto, was ordered by a US court to pay compensation to a couple who suffered cancer due to the weed killer Roundup.
On May 13, a California court ruled in a lawsuit between Alva and Alberta Pilliod and Bayer AG, owner of chemical company Monsanto, which produces the weed killer Roundup. The chemical giant must pay more than $2 billion in compensation to the Pilliods for the product’s suspected cancer-causing properties. This is the largest compensation Bayer AG has had to pay since acquiring Monsanto for $63 billion last year.
Alva and Alberta Pilliod claim that their regular use of the glyphosate-containing weed killer Roundup from 1975 to 2011 caused them to develop non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The two were diagnosed with cancer in 2011 and 2015, respectively.
The Pilliods filed a lawsuit against Monsanto in 2017. Both are now in remission, but the risk of the disease returning and shortening their lives is high.
Brent Wisner, the Pilliods’ attorney, said Bayer must be held accountable for its products. “Monsanto has consistently denied that its herbicides cause cancer, and the Pilliods are victims of that deception,” he said.
In a statement on May 13, a Bayer representative said the group was disappointed with the court’s decision and would appeal. The company argued that both Alva and Alberta Pilliod, both over 70 years old, had a history of long-term illness, a factor that significantly increased the risk of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. In addition, Bayer cited the conclusion of a study by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that the use of glyphosate does not affect public health.
Bayer currently faces more than 13,400 lawsuits in the US over the herbicide Roundup. The plaintiffs claim that Monsanto has known about the herbicide’s cancer risk for decades but failed to warn consumers and instead pressured scientists and authorities to get favorable assessments. Bayer completely denies these allegations.
In 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) listed glyphosate as a possible human carcinogen. However, a 2017 Reuters investigation found that the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer had revised its list, removing evidence that glyphosate causes cancer. In addition to the EPA, the European Chemicals Agency and several other regulatory agencies have determined that glyphosate is not likely to cause cancer in humans.
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