The Bayer AG logo and flag are printed outside a factory of the German pharmaceutical and chemical manufacturer in Wuppertal, Germany.
Wolfgang Rattay | Reuters
The Supreme Court rejected BayerCalls for an end to thousands of lawsuits claiming its Roundup weed killer causes cancer.
Judges on Tuesday issued a $25 million judgment in favor of Edwin Hardeman, a California man who said he developed cancer from using Roundup for decades to treat treats poison oak, overgrown trees, and weeds on his San Francisco Bay Area property. Hardeman’s case has served as a test case for thousands of similar lawsuits.
The high court’s action comes amid a flurry of court battles over Roundup that have gone off in different directions.
On Friday, a panel of the 9th U.S. Court of Appeals rejected an Environmental Protection Agency finding from 2020 that glyphosate poses no serious health risk and is “unlikely.” cause cancer in humans. The Court of Appeals ordered the EPA to recheck its findings.
At the same time, Bayer won four consecutive trials in state court against people who allege they got cancer from Roundup use. The latest ruling in favor of the company came last week in Oregon.
Bayer has argued that federal regulators have repeatedly determined their products to be safe and that lawsuits based on the claims under state law should be dismissed.
Last year, Bayer spent $4.5 billion to address claims that glyphosate, the weed-killing ingredient in Roundup, causes non-Hodgins lymphoma, a type of cancer. The company was previously liable for nearly $10 billion in previous rounds of litigation.
Bayer has also warned that allowing such claims would hurt innovation in agriculture, healthcare and other industries.
Bayer inherited Roundup and the lawsuit when it acquired Monsanto in 2018.
The EPA says on its website that “there is no evidence that glyphosate causes cancer in humans.” But in 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization, classified glyphosate as “possibly carcinogenic to humans.” The agency said it relied on “limited” evidence for human cancer and “sufficient” evidence for cancer in research animals.
The Justice Department, which has sided with Bayer in lower courts in the Trump administration, recommended that the high court not get involved.
Bayer insists the product is safe, but says it will replace glyphosate in Roundup for residential use beginning in 2023. Products containing glyphosate will remain available for professional and site use. camp.
