United States: Georgia Man Wins $2 Billion in Roundup Weedkiller Lawsuit

Georgia Man Wins $2 Billion in Roundup Weedkiller Lawsuit, as Governor Weighs Law to Protect Chemical Makers From Liability
by Carey Gillam, childrenshealthdefense.org, March 25. 2025

A jury found that Bayer, which bought Roundup-maker Monsanto in 2018, failed to warn users of years of scientific evidence that exposure to Roundup could cause cancer. The verdict rocked Bayer investors, driving down the German company’s shares more than 8% on Monday.

A Georgia jury verdict ordering Bayer AG to pay over $2 billion to a man suffering from cancer he blamed on his use of Roundup weedkiller comes as that state’s governor weighs whether to sign into law a measure that would effectively bar such cases from going to trial in the future.

The March 24 verdict rocked Bayer investors, driving down the German company’s shares more than 8% on Monday.

The jury found that Bayer, which bought Roundup-maker Monsanto in 2018, failed to properly warn users of years of scientific evidence that exposure to Roundup could cause cancer, awarding plaintiff John Barnes $2 billion in punitive damages and $65 million in compensatory damages.

New Study: Pesticides Together with Electromagnetic Fields Can Stress Bees Leading to Colony Collapse Disorder

New Study: Pesticides Together With Electromagnetic Fields Can Stress Bees Leading to Colony Collapse Disorder
Environmental Health Trust, 16 Sep 2021

A 2021 study entitled, “Combined Effects of Pesticides and Electromagnetic-Fields on Honeybees: Multi-Stress Exposure” published in the journal Insects ( affiliated with the American Association of Professional Apiculturists) by scientists of the University of Milan Italy and Instituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale della Lombardia ed Emilia Romagna “Bruno Ubertini” found the combined effects pesticides and non-ionizing electromagnetic fields on bees potentiated several effects including disease, higher mortality, behavioral alterations (queen changes, excess of both drone-brood deposition and honey storage) and biochemical anomalies.

United States Court Orders FCC to Explain Standards Meant to Protect Health of Cell Phone Users

[Press Release] U.S. court orders FCC to explain standards meant to protect health of cell phone users
Phonegate Alert Association, Equipe Phonegate 16 August 2021

In an important decision issued on Friday, August 13, 2021 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the judges ruled in part in favor of our U.S. partner Environmental Health Trust (EHT) and the other plaintiffs in their lawsuit initiated in 2019 against the U.S. telecom regulator, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) :

“ordered or ruled that the petitions for reconsideration be granted in part and that the matter be remanded to the Commission to provide a reasoned explanation of its determination that the guidelines are adequately protective of the adverse effects of non-cancer radio frequency radiation exposure”

The court’s reasons are even clearer, requiring the FCC to :

“(i) provide a reasoned explanation for its decision to retain its testing procedures for determining whether cell phones and other portable electronic devices comply with its guidelines, (ii) address the impacts of RF radiation on children, the health implications of long-term exposure to RF radiation, the ubiquity of wireless devices, and other technological developments that have occurred since the Commission last updated its guidelines, and (iii) address the impacts of RF radiation on the environment.”

An action taken following the revelations of the Phonegate scandal in the Chicago Tribune

Roundup Maker to Pay $10 Billion to Settle Cancer Suits

Roundup Maker to Pay $10 Billion to Settle Cancer Suits
By Patricia Cohen, nytimes.com,  June 24, 2020

Bayer faced tens of thousands of claims linking the weedkiller to cases of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Some of the money is set aside for future cases.

Bayer, the world's largest seed and pesticide
producer, added Roundup to its portfolio when
it acquired Monsanto. Credit: Daniel Acker/
Bloomberg

When Bayer, the giant German chemical and pharmaceutical maker, acquired Monsanto two years ago, the company knew it was also buying the world’s best-known weedkiller. What it didn’t anticipate was a legal firestorm over claims that the herbicide, Roundup, caused cancer.

Now Bayer is moving to put those troubles behind it, agreeing to pay more than $10 billion to settle tens of thousands of claims while continuing to sell the product without adding warning labels about its safety.

The deal, announced Wednesday, is among the largest settlements ever in U.S. civil litigation. Negotiations were extraordinarily complex, producing separate agreements with 25 lead law firms whose clients will receive varying amounts.

California Jury Hits Monsanto with $2 Billion Judgment in Cancer Lawsuit

California jury hits Monsanto with $2 billion judgment in cancer lawsuit

By Andrew Blankstein and Adiel Kaplan,, nbcnews.com, 14 May 2019

It's the largest payout so far and the third loss in a row for Monsanto in lawsuits alleging Roundup has caused or contributed to cancer.

A woman uses a Monsanto's Roundup weedkiller spray
without glyphosate in a garden in Ercuis near Paris on
May 6, 2018. Benoit Tessier / Reuters file

A California jury has found that a popular weedkiller made by Monsanto likely caused cancer in a husband and wife and ordered the chemical giant to pay more than $2 billion in damages, twice what the plaintiffs' attorney had requested.

It's the largest payout and the third loss in a row for Monsanto in lawsuits alleging that Roundup, which includes the herbicide glyphosate, has caused or contributed to cancer — and there are approximately 11,000 suits pending across the country.

"Unlike the first two Monsanto trials, where the judges severely limited the amount of plaintiffs' evidence," attorney Michael Miller said, "we were finally allowed to show a jury the mountain of evidence showing Monsanto's manipulation of science, the media and regulatory agencies to forward their own agenda despite Roundup's severe harm to the animal kingdom and humankind."

French Court Rules Monsanto Liable for Farmer's Health Problems

French Court Rules Monsanto Liable for Farmer's Health Problems
by Olivia Rosane, ecowatch.com, 12 April 2019

French farmer Paul François outside a courthouse 
before a 2015 appeal of his case against Monsanto.
Jeff Pachoud / APF / Getty Images

A French appeals court ruled Thursday in favor of a farmer who has been in a decade-long fight with Monsanto since he fell ill after inhaling a now-banned weedkiller.

Paul Francois, 55, said he suffered neurological damage after inhaling Monsanto's Lasso in 2004. He sued the company arguing that the labeling on the product had been inadequate. Courts ruled in his favor in 2012 and 2015, but France's top court overturned those rulings and ordered a new hearing.

"We are all happy to have won but it came at a heavy price," Francois told reporters, according to Reuters. "It's a big sigh of relief. It's been 12 years of fighting, 12 years during which I had to put my whole life on hold."

A Second U.S. Jury Finds That Roundup Causes Cancer

A Second U.S. Jury Finds That Roundup Causes Cancer
by Olivia Rosane, EcoWatch, 20 March 2019

A second U.S. jury has ruled that Roundup causes cancer.

Edwin Hardeman is the plaintiff in the first U.S. federal trial
claiming that Roundup causes cancer.  
NOAH BERGER / AFP / Getty Images

The unanimous verdict was announced Tuesday in San Francisco in the first federal case to be brought against Monsanto, now owned by Bayer, alleging that repeated use of the company's glyphosate-containing weedkiller caused the plaintiff's cancer. Seventy-year-old Edwin Hardeman of Santa Rosa, California said he used Roundup for almost 30 years on his properties before developing non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

The decision comes less than a year after a jury awarded $289 million to Bay-area groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson over similar claims. The amount was later reduced to $78 million.

"Today's verdict reinforces what another jury found last year, and what scientists with the state of California and the World Health Organization have concluded: Glyphosate causes cancer in people," Environmental Working Group President Ken Cook said in a statement. "As similar lawsuits mount, the e

Bayer Stock Crashes After Monsanto Cancer Verdict Upheld By Judge; Analyst Estimates $800 Billion In Future Liability

Bayer Stock Crashes After Monsanto Cancer Verdict Upheld By Judge; Analyst Estimates $800 Billion In Future Liability
By Sayer Ji, Contributing writer for Wake Up World, 24 October 2018

Bayer greedily bought and swallowed the ‘poison pill’ of Monsanto without considering its true liability. Fifty-seven billion Euros of market cap down the drain later, now their headache is taking on epic proportions…

Growing uncertainty about how San Francisco Superior Court Judge Suzanne Ramos Bolanos would rule in Bayer’s appeal of the Monsanto cancer verdict was resolved Tuesday morning, as the judge upheld the jury’s decision that the glyphosate-based weedkiller (Roundup) sold by Monsanto caused a California man’s terminal cancer and that Monsanto intentionally hid its dangers.

Monsanto Trial: Judge Rejects Bid to Overturn Landmark Cancer Verdict

Monsanto trial: judge rejects bid to overturn landmark cancer verdict
by Sam Levin in Oakland, The Guardian, 23 October 2018

Dewayne 'Lee' Johnson reacts after hearing the verdict in
his case against Monsanto.  Photo: Josh Edelson/ AP

Dewayne Johnson originally won $289m after finding Roundup weedkiller caused illness, but judge reduces financial award

A California judge has rejected Monsanto’s appeal to overturn a landmark jury verdict which found that its popular herbicide causes cancer.

The judge’s ruling on Monday largely sided with Dewayne “Lee” Johnson, a father of three and former school groundskeeper, who won a $289m awardover the summer after alleging that his exposure to Roundup weedkiller gave him cancer. During the trial, the first of its kind, the 46-year-old also alleged that Monsanto had failed to warn him of the risks of using its product.

Bayer's Monsanto Faces 8,000 Lawsuits on Glyphosate

Bayer's Monsanto faces 8,000 lawsuits on glyphosate
Reuters staff, 23 August 2018

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The number of U.S. lawsuits brought against Bayer’s (BAYGn.DE) newly acquired Monsanto has jumped to about 8,000, as the German drugmaker braces for years of legal wrangling over alleged cancer risks of glyphosate-based weedkillers.

FILE PHOTO: Monsanto Co's Roundup is shown for sale in Encinitas, California, U.S., June 26, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

Bayer had previously disclosed 5,200 such lawsuits against Monsanto, which it acquired in a $63 billion deal completed in June.

“The number of plaintiffs in both state and federal litigation is approximately 8,000 as of end-July. These numbers may rise or fall over time but our view is that the number is not indicative of the merits of the plaintiffs’ cases,” Bayer Chief Executive Werner Baumann told analysts in a conference call on Thursday.

Monsanto Ordered to Pay $289 Million in World's First Roundup Cancer Trial

Monsanto ordered to pay $289 million in world's first Roundup cancer trial
by Tina Bellon, reuters.com, 11 August 2018

(Reuters) - A California jury on Friday found Monsanto liable in a lawsuit filed by a man who alleged the company’s glyphosate-based weed-killers, including Roundup, caused his cancer and ordered the company to pay $289 million in damages.

FILE PHOTO:  Monsanto Co's Roundup is shown
for sale in Encinitas, California, U.S., June 26, 2017.
REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo.

The case of school groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson was the first lawsuit to go to trial alleging glyphosate causes cancer. Monsanto, a unit of Bayer AG following a $62.5 billion acquisition by the German conglomerate, faces more than 5,000 similar lawsuits across the United States.

The jury at San Francisco’s Superior Court of California deliberated for three days before finding that Monsanto had failed to warn Johnson and other consumers of the cancer risks posed by its weed killers.

It awarded $39 million in compensatory and $250 million in punitive damages.

Monsanto to Get Flooded with Thousands of Cancer-Related Lawsuits

Monsanto to get flooded with thousands of cancer-related lawsuits
By Jade Scipioni, foxbusiness.com, 11 July 2018

Christine Sheppard, retired coffee-bean farmer

Monsanto faced a major setback on Tuesday, as a federal judge ruled to allow three expert witnesses to testify that its controversial weed killer Roundup causes cancer, opening up a floodgate for thousands of lawsuits to come.

The agrochemical company, which is now a unit of Bayer AG following a $62.5 billion takeover that concluded in June, has been engulfed in a trial with 46-year-old Dwayne “Lee” Johnson in recent weeks.

Johnson claims he became sick with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma after using Roundup for more than two years as a groundkeeper for a school district outside of San Francisco.

Johnson is the first of a long list of about 4,000 people looking to sue the weed and seed maker for similar allegations.

First Glyphosate Trial, of Thousands, Begins as Plaintiff Fights for His Life

First Glyphosate Trial, of Thousands, Begins as Plaintiff Fights for His Life
by Olivia Rosane, EcoWatch, 18 June 2018

A field worker sprays glyphosate. Plaintiff Dewayne
Johnson used the chemical 20 to 30 times per year.
Natural News screen shot / Vimeo

Monsanto may have dropped its name, but it can't drop the thousands of cases being brought against it by cancer sufferers claiming its weed-killer Roundup gave them non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, the first of which goes to trial Monday, CNN reported.

The first plaintiff to get his day in court is Dewayne Johnson, a 46-year-old Bay-area father of two, but for Johnson that is a dubious honor. Johnson is being granted an expedited trial because his doctors say he is nearing death, and California law facilitates speedier trials in such cases.

Johnson worked doing pest management for a county school system and used Roundup 20 to 30 times per year in the line of duty. Now, he has days when lesions cover 80 percent of his body and he is too ill to speak.

Glyphosate Sprayed on GMO Crops Linked to Lake Erie’s Toxic Algae Bloom

A look of the growing bloom of harmful algae in
Lake Erie from space.

Glyphosate Sprayed on GMO Crops Linked to Lake Erie’s Toxic Algae Bloom

by Lorraine Chow, EcoWatch, 5 July 2016

Glyphosate, the controversial main ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup and other herbicides, is being connected to Lake Erie’s troubling algae blooms, which has fouled drinking water and suffocated and killed marine life in recent years.

Phosphorus—attributed to farm runoff carried by the Maumee River—has long been identifiedas a leading culprit feeding the excessive blooms in the western Lake Erie basin. Now, according to a new study from chemistry professor Christopher Spiese, a significant correlation has been established between the increased use of glyphosate to the percentage of dissolved reactive phosphorus (DRP) in the runoff.

Cultivation of Strawberries

REPOSTED 31 May 2013:  

Image:  Dragonfly Earth Medicine

Imported strawberries are still appearing in supermarkets in Switzerland from February.  It's not certain that working conditions in Spain have improved all that much since this article was written in April 2011.  There is certainly a very serious environmental crisis:  the strawberry fields are sucking dry the area of Spain where most of the "red gold" fruit is cultivated.  Switzerland imports most of its out-of-season strawberries from Spain. This fruit is cultivated in vitro in central Spain then transported south for planting in soil sterilized by a chemical substance which Saddam Hussein used to kill populations in Kurdistan. The plants are grown on plastic which is dispersed into the environment or burned after harvest. The cultivation of strawberries requires enormous amounts of pesticides which contaminate drinking water and fresh water in a natural reserve for migratory birds. Most of the strawberry field workers are women who are poorly paid and live in unsanitary conditions. Many suffer from respiratory diseases and skin infections caused by exposure to the pesticides used to cultivate the strawberries.

The Story of Silent Spring

Rachel Carson
(Photo:
Alfred Eisenstaedt / Time Life Pictures)

"Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, which in 1962 exposed the hazards of the pesticide DDT, eloquently questioned humanity's faith in technological progress and helped set the stage for the environmental movement...

"The threats she had outlined -- the contamination of the food chain, cancer, genetic damage, the deaths of entire species -- were too frightening to ignore. For the first time, the need to regulate industry in order to protect the environment became widely accepted, and environmentalism was born."

The Story of Silent Spring -
How a courageous woman took on the chemical industry and raised important questions about humankind's impact on nature.

Summary by the Natural Resources Defense Council

Although their role will probably always be less celebrated than wars, marches, riots or stormy political campaigns, it is books that have at times most powerfully influenced social change in American life. Thomas Paine's Common Sense galvanized radical sentiment in the early days of the American revolution; Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe roused Northern antipathy to slavery in the decade leading up to the Civil War; and Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, which in 1962 exposed the hazards of the pesticide DDT, eloquently questioned humanity's faith in technological progress and helped set the stage for the environmental movement.

Global Actions Against the Big Six Agrochemical Companies

Atrazine indicator species portrait.
The Swiss company Syngenta is the
 primary manufacturer of atrazine.

This message, dated 6 December 2012, came from the Permanent People’s Tribunal (PPT) Session on Agrochemical Transnational Corporations. Please organize and join in actions against BASF, Bayer, Dow, Dupont, Monsanto, and Syngenta. 

Global actions against the Big 6 agrochemical companies

1. Thousands Call on BASF, Bayer, and Syngenta to End Sales of Highly Hazardous Pesticides:  (Hamburg, 3 December 2012)  Every year, large numbers of people worldwide are victims of pesticide poisonings. BASF, Bayer, and Syngenta, the three largest global pesticide companies, are to a significant extent responsible for these pesticide poisonings. A broad alliance of some 10 000 people and 127 organizations from numerous countries have now joined PAN Germany to support a letter authored by PAN Germany and dated 3 December 2012 that calls on these multinational companies to discontinue sales of highly hazardous pesticides throughout the world. Read more at http://www.pan-germany.org/deu/~news-1213.html

Environmental Poisoning of Bees in Switzerland

The Swiss advocacy group, Association romande alerte aux ondes électromagnétiques (www.alerte.ch) has posted on its site, a model letter enabling beekeepers in the French-speaking part of Switzerland to file a criminal complaint addressed to the investigating judge (juge d'instruction) against persons unknown for the keepers’ loss of bee colonies.  See article in full here in French.
The English translation of the full text follows:

Re : Loss of bee colonies during the 2011-2012 winter

Madam, Sir :

Two years ago, I hesitated to file a complaint relating to the very important losses of hives during the 2009-2010 winter (11 out of 18 colonies). I did not do this, because I had attributed it to the capriciousness of the weather or the pressure of varroa mites on my bee colonies, which nevertheless had been treated correctly against this parasite.

This spring (2012), I noticed that I lost 14 out of 18 hives at my apiary in ….. (VD). Such a level of loss is itself unacceptable. I have been practicing apiculture since 1986 and I cannot say that I have ever known comparable losses.

Toxic Pesticides: Syngenta's Paraquat and Atrazine

“The campaign ‘Stop Paraquat’, conducted by non-governmental organizations, trade unions and scientists around the world, calls to end the production and ban the use of this highly toxic harmful herbicide”, manufactured and distributed by the Swiss company Syngenta.  Although banned in Switzerland since 31 December 1989 and in the European Union since 2007, this toxic herbicide is still being marketed by Syngenta to over 100 countries, usually under the brand name “Gramoxone”.  It is regularly used on banana, coffee, palm oil, rubber, fruit, and pineapple plantations and also on maize and rice fields.

Acute health effects of paraquat include eye injury, nosebleed, skin irritation and burns, nausea, vomiting, pain, breathing difficulties.  Exposure to very low doses over a longer period of time produces chronic health problems such as damage to the lungs, nervous system or brain, and may also cause potential birth defects and increased risk of developing Parkinson’s disease.

This request comes from the Berne Declaration and Permanent People's Tribunal:  Vote for Syngenta as the Worst Company - just click on "VOTE NOW" in the attached link.

World's Six Biggest Agrochemical Companies Found Guilty of Human Rights Violations

Following is a résumé of various articles on the Permanent People’s Tribunal which recently condemned the world’s six biggest agrochemical industries for human rights violations.  One of the articles came from “SOS pour un monde meilleur” by way of the International Society of Doctors for the Environment, Italy.

After three days of deliberations in Bangalore, India  (3-6 December 2011), the Permanent People’s Tribunal (PPT) cited human rights violations of the world’s six largest agrochemical industries:  Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, Dow Chemical, DuPont and BASF.

Over 355,000 persons die each year from pesticide poisoning and hundreds of thousands more are made ill. Testimonies of persons who had been harmed by pesticides and biotechnology were presented. The practices of the agrichemical industry, which is valued at $42 billion, affect the environment, food, health, children and future generations.