There are thousands of lawsuits filed against Bayer-Monsanto. And a group of activists warns: glyphosate found in dozens of oat-based products.
The landmark ruling handed down against Monsanto – a multinational owned by Germany's Bayer – in a trial held in San Francisco, in the United States, could trigger an avalanche of lawsuits against the maker of the herbicide Roundup.
Read also: Glyphosate and cancer, Monsanto ordered to pay $289 million to a gardener
According to the company itself, there are approximately eight thousand lawsuits filed with American courts. Far more, then, than the already considerable number previously estimated, when five thousand legal actions had been mentioned. Werner Baumann, Bayer's chief executive, confirmed the figures during a telephone press conference, noting that they refer to the end of last July. But he also added that the wave of potential lawsuits has in no way deterred the German management, which on the contrary has said it is determined "to vigorously defend" the glyphosate-based pesticide.
Yet the verdict handed down at the beginning of August ordered Bayer-Monsanto to pay a colossal sum in damages – equal to 289 million dollars – to a farmer who, according to the judges, had not been sufficiently informed of the dangers of the substance that allegedly made him ill. A decision that immediately caused a sharp fall in Bayer's stock market share price.
Despite this, the multinational stated that it has no intention of changing its industrial strategy or its objectives in any way. Baumann said he was on the contrary "very optimistic about the future", emphasising the growing role that he believes chemistry will play in the agriculture sector. The Leverkusen group will in any case have to defend itself, starting with the appeal through which it hopes to overturn the San Francisco ruling. But Bayer-Monsanto is not the only company facing potential penalties. General Mills, too, as reported by the website EcoWatch, could face a class action: the giant is accused of failing to adequately inform consumers about traces of glyphosate present in its products (mainly cereals).
According to Reuters, a first complaint on the matter has already been filed with the federal court in Miami, Florida. A laboratory test commissioned by the American activist group EWG (Environmental Working Group) did indeed find "heavy levels" of glyphosate in almost all (43 out of 45) samples of oat-based products analysed. And in two thirds of cases "the quantities exceed the maximum safety thresholds identified by our scientists as safe for children's health".
