A jury in San Francisco has ordered Monsanto to pay $289 million in damages to a terminally ill former groundskeeper, ruling that the company's Roundup weedkiller caused his cancer. The verdict, delivered on Friday, found that Monsanto failed to warn of the health risks and acted with malice or oppression.
Dewayne Johnson, 46, was the first person to take Monsanto to trial over claims that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, causes cancer. His lawyers argued that internal company documents showed Monsanto knew for decades about the potential risks but suppressed the evidence. The jury agreed, awarding $250 million in punitive damages and $39 million in compensatory damages.
Monsanto has vowed to appeal, maintaining that Roundup is safe and not linked to cancer. Vice-president Scott Partridge said the verdict does not change the decades of safe use and science behind the product, and criticised the World Health Organization's classification of glyphosate as 'probably carcinogenic', calling it 'corrupted'.
Johnson, who has non-Hodgkin lymphoma, testified about his suffering, saying 'It really takes everything out of you'. He hopes the verdict will support thousands of similar lawsuits pending against the company and bring national attention to the issue.
