After opening arguments kicked off in California state court on Monday for a Bay Area man’s landmark lawsuit alleging that Monsanto’s popular weedkiller Roundup caused him to develop cancer, a federal judge on Tuesday ruled that hundreds of unrelated but similar cases against the agrochemical company can also proceed to trial.
US District Judge Vince Chhabria in San Francisco concluded that although he believes the evidence presented by attorneys representing the cancer patients and their families, “seems too equivocal to support any firm conclusion that glyphosate,” the active ingredient Roundup, causes in cancer, the matter should be taken up by a jury. As Reuters noted, his decision “followed years of litigation and weeks of hearings.”
It also follows the first day of trial for DeWayne “Lee” Johnson’s suit in California’s San Francisco Superior Court. Johnson is a 46-year-old father of three who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma after years of working as a groundskeeper for school district, a position which regularly exposed him to a pair of Monsanto products containing glyphosate.
Although the state of California and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) — a branch of the World Health Organization (WHO) — have classified glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen, US and European regulators continue to defy scientists and anti-pesticide activists’ warnings by allowing farmers to keep spraying the world’s most common herbicide.
While Monsanto maintains that its products are safe — with a company attorney claiming in court on Monday that “scientific evidence is overwhelming that glyphosate-based products do not cause cancer” — some 4,000 plaintiffs have alleged that Monsanto’s glyphosate products such as Roundup have made them sick. However, Johnson’s case is the first to go trial.
During opening statements on Monday, the Guardian reports, Johnson’s attorney Brent Wisner showed jurors photographs of legions on his client’s body that were a result of his cancer and declared: “The simple fact is he’s going to die. It’s just a matter of time.” As Johnson reportedly lowered his head and his wife cried beside him, Wisner added, “Between now and then, it’s just nothing but pain.”
The attorney argued that Monsanto — which recently merged with German pharmaceutical giant Bayer — “has specifically gone out of its way to bully…and to fight independent researchers.”Wisner, the newspaper noted, “presented internal Monsanto emails that he said showed how the agrochemical company rejected critical research and expert warnings over the years while pursuing and helping to write favorable analyses of their products.”
In addition to internal documents, Wisner also said the trial will feature depositions from 10 former or current Monsanto employees, and that there is “a mountain of data,” going back to 2000, which shows that exposure to glyphosate can cause genetic damage that could lead to the type of cancer Johnson has.
“We’re going to see for the first time evidence that nobody has seen before, evidence that has been in Monsanto’s files that we’ve obtained from lawyers and the people in Monsanto,” co-counsel Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told the San Francisco Chronicle. “I don’t think it’s a surprise after 20 years Monsanto has known about the cancer-causing properties of this chemical and has tried to stop the public from knowing it, and tried to manipulate the regulatory process.”
Kennedy added that he believes this case will help the hundreds of other clients he is representing in cases filed against the company. “So many people have been exposed to this chemical, this group of chemicals, and many of them have been injured,” he said. “The science is on our side. It is mountainous.”
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.