A retiree had attacked Monsanto after learning that he had cancer in 2015. He attributed his illness to the regular use of this glyphosate herbicide.
Le Monde
New reverse for Bayer. Tuesday, June 21, the United States Supreme Court refused Monsanto’s request for appeal, ownership of the German group since 2018, making its conviction to pay $ 25 million (more than 23 million euros) to a retired who imputed his cancer to the weedkiller Roundup.
In accordance with uses, the high court has not justified its decision which risks having heavy consequences for the group, referred to by more than 30,000 comparable complaints.
“Bayer respectfully expresses his disagreement with the decision of the Supreme Court [but] is completely ready to face the legal risk associated with future potential complaints in the United States,” the group reacted in a statement. The Bayer group said it had put an additional $ 4.5 billion aside to deal with new procedures. The company specifies “not to admit any harm or responsibility” and “continue to support its Roundup products, a precious tool for effective agricultural production in the world”.
The choice of the Court not to intervene leaves in place the condemnation of Monsanto’s appeal in the trial brought by Edwin Hardeman, who had been diagnosed with non -Hodgkinian lymphoma in 2015. Mr. Hardeman was one of the first complainants to attack Monsanto in court, imputing his herbicide cancer he had used on his great property for twenty-five years and accusing the Monsanto group of deceiving users by affirming that the glyphosate product was harmless.
Disping and intimidation
Monsanto has always hammered that no study had concluded the dangerousness of glyphosate and Roundup, put on the market in the 1970s. In March 2015, the International Center for Research on Cancer (CIR), The agency of the World Health Organization responsible for inventorcing carcinogenic substances, however, classified glyphosate as “probable carcinogen” for humans.
The disclosure, in 2018, as part of the trials against Monsanto, many internal documents to the American company – the “Monsanto Papers” – also highlighted its many maneuvers to influence public expertise on glyphosate , denigrate the Circ, intimidate certain scientists or write scientific studies without appearing in its signatories.