Glyphosate, American justice upholds conviction against Monsanto
Environment — di Andrea Barolini
Monsanto must pay $25.3 million to a man who used Roundup for 25 years. The multinational's behaviour has been deemed “reprehensible”.
Glyphosate, American justice upholds conviction against Monsanto
Monsanto must pay $25.3 million to a man who used Roundup for 25 years. The multinational's behaviour has been deemed “reprehensible”.
On Monday 15 July, an American judge decided to uphold the conviction against Monsanto, ordering the company to pay a substantial sum in damages to a seventy-year-old man, Edwin Hardeman, who used the herbicide Roundup for thirty years and is now suffering from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Although the amount was drastically reduced from the initial $80.8 million (€71.8 million) to $25.3 million, the multinational's liability has nonetheless been confirmed.
Judge slashes payout in Roundup lawsuit, but calls Monsanto's conduct "reprehensible" gizmo.do/RgIIHFk
"Public opinion manipulated by Monsanto"
According to San Francisco judge Vince Chhabria, the illness affecting the man is linked to glyphosate. The reason for reducing the compensation also appears to be primarily procedural: according to the court, the amount initially set "is not admissible from a constitutional standpoint".
What matters above all is that the judge did not grant Monsanto's request for a retrial. Nor did he alter the calculation of the compensation owed for the medical expenses incurred by Hardeman, as well as the financial losses he suffered, and the moral damages he sustained.
The judge in the first federal court trial of lawsuits by cancer victims who used Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide criticized the company’s apparent indifference to health and safety, but reduced the damage award from $80 to $25 million. trib.al/KclLEnC
Thousands of lawsuits against the multinational in the United States
Hardeman explained that he had used Roundup for more than 25 years to clear weeds from his property in California. "Based on the evidence that emerged during the trial," Chhabria concluded, "Monsanto deserves to be punished. The evidence makes clear that the company was more concerned with manipulating public opinion than with making its product safe." Behaviour described as "reprehensible".
Read also: Glyphosate. The risk of lymphoma increases by 41% among those most exposed, according to a study
"For years, lies were told about the safety of Roundup," commented one of Hardeman's lawyers, "and every effort to inform the public about the carcinogenicity of glyphosate was obstructed." Bayer, the company that now owns Monsanto, announced its intention to appeal. There are, however, now thousands of lawsuits filed in the United States against the multinational.