photo credit: Sheila Fitzgerald // Shutterstock
Last month, a jury award DeWayne Johnson $289 million after the it was determined that Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer caused Johnson’s cancer. Johnson worked as a school groundskeeper for years. The jury says that Monsanto’s should have provided a warning label of potential health hazards.
Now, Monsanto is asking for the case to be thrown out. The company’s attorney says Johnson failed to prove that Roundup or similar herbicides caused his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. They said there was no evidence that Monsanto executives were malicious in marketing Roundup. They are asking that the verdict be set aside, the award reduced or a new trial.
Johnson’s case was one of about 8,000 lawsuits Monsanto is facing across the country, will allegations that the ingredient, glyphosate, in their product, causes cancer.
According to Reuters, in September 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency concluded a decades-long assessment of glyphosate risks and found the chemical is not a likely carcinogen to humans. However, the cancer unit of the World Health Organization in 2015 classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans.”
A hearing on the motions is set for Oct. 10.