THURSDAY, March 28, 2018 (HealthDay News) — A California man who said that Monsanto’s weedkiller Roundup caused his cancer was awarded $80 million in damages by a jury in San Francisco on Wednesday.
The same six-person jury previously found that Roundup was a significant factor in Edwin Hardeman’s non-Hodgkin lymphoma, the Associated Press reported. Hardeman, 70, said in his lawsuit against Monsanto that he used Roundup products to treat poison oak, overgrowth, and weeds on his San Francisco Bay Area property for years.
Monsanto says studies have shown that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, is safe and said it plans to appeal, the AP reported. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says glyphosate is safe for people when used in accordance with label directions, according to the news service.
In August, a different jury awarded another man $289 million in a Roundup-related lawsuit, but a judge later cut that to $78 million. Monsanto has appealed that case. Hardeman’s lawsuit may be more important than the previous case because U.S. Judge Vince Chhabria, who is overseeing hundreds of Roundup lawsuits, considers Hardeman’s case and two others “bellwether trials,” the AP reported, meaning the results of those cases could influence lawyers’ decisions about continuing to pursue similar lawsuits or settling them.
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