Monsanto Corp., the Big Ag company which manufactures the weed killer ROUNDUP®, and was the loser in three California jury trials which $2.48 billion in potential damages, in which all the plaintiffs asserted the active ingredient in ROUNDUP, glyphosate, caused their non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL), is getting ready for a fourth trial, this time in its hometown of St. Louis, Missouri. Like the California plaintiffs, this Missouri plaintiff alleged that the herbicide caused her cancer.
Monsanto was recently acquired by Bayer AG, the German biopharmaceutical company, in a $63 billion deal three years ago. However, due to the Roundup trials, Bayer may be facing some corporate heartburn as it digests the after effects of the three California trials where juries have found Monsanto liable for causing NHL for its Roundup weedkilling product.
In the first trial, a jury in San Francisco found Monsanto liable for causing plaintiff Dewayne Johnson’s NHL for $289 million. However, the judge reduced the verdict to $78 million. In the second trial in San Francisco, a jury held Monsanto liable for causing plaintiff Edward Hardeman’s NHL. The third trial, involving NHL in an elderly couple, Alva and Alberta Pilliod, who had been using the Roundup product for two decades, ended with the jury verdict against Monsanto, again, in the amount of $2 billion.
Bayer is fighting all three trial verdicts on appeal, especially in light of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s new report reaffirming the safety of glyphosates. However, it is quietly behind the scenes, has begun to set aside $5.6 billion in research and development on new weed killer technology, in an effort to get ahead of the Monsanto and Roundup debacle which has weighed heavily on its stock and public relations.
The fourth trial, in St. Louis County, Missouri, near the Monsanto’s world headquarters, begins today. More will be discussed on the blog as developments occur.