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A federal jury concluded on Tuesday that the popular Monsanto weed killer Roundup was a "substantial factor" in the cancer of a California man, striking a blow to the company that aggressively defends its products against thousands of similar claims .
The six-member jury rendered its verdict unanimously in the United States District Court in San Francisco, several months after a gardener who said Roundup had caused his cancer had received about 80 millions of dollars in a separate case in California.
Tuesday's verdict culminated in the first of two phases of Roundup's federal case on possible health risks and whether Monsanto misled the man, Edwin Hardeman, about the risks.
Mr. Hardeman used Roundup to control weeds and poisoned oak on his property for 26 years. He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2015.
The second phase of the case, which will start on Wednesday, will focus on whether Monsanto, which acquired by Bayer AG last year, should be held partly responsible for the cancer of Mr. Hardeman, said his lawyer, Jennifer Moore. Ms. Moore said the lawyers would seek to prove that Monsanto has manipulated public opinion and science to minimize Roundup's health risks.
Lawyers will argue that Monsanto knew or ought to have known that Roundup causes cancer, said Moore during an interview Tuesday. Hardeman's team will ask the jury to charge the company for its medical bills and an undetermined amount of damages, she added.
"We are confident, given the evidence, that a jury, when it will be presented with all the evidence, will see that Monsanto has committed 40 years of mischief within a company," he said. said Ms. Moore.
Bayer said Tuesday in a statement that he was disappointed with the verdict of the jury and that "the evidence from phase two will show that Monsanto's conduct is appropriate and that the company should not be held liable for the cancer of M Hardeman ".
"We have great sympathy for Mr. Hardeman and his family, but much scientific evidence supports the conclusion that Roundup was not the cause of his cancer," Bayer said in a statement. "Bayer stands behind these products and will defend them with vigor."
The verdict in the closely followed case is an important step in the controversial public debate on Roundup, which has been Monsanto's flagship product. Its active ingredient, glyphosate, is the most widely used weed killer in the world.
Moore said the verdict would likely influence thousands of similar cases – about 11,200 people sued Monsanto for Roundup in February, according to Bayer.
Bayer, on the other hand, said the jury's ruling on Tuesday "has no impact on future cases and lawsuits because everyone has their own factual and legal circumstances".
Edward K. Cheng, a law professor at Vanderbilt University, said that legally, Tuesday's conclusion can not serve as a precedent in other Roundup cases. But practically, he said, the verdict on Tuesday and last year that juries have linked Roundup to cancer, "have some importance."
"What ends up happening are these markers," he said. "I would expect Monsanto to start thinking" to what degree of risk are we here? "If a jury after the other was saying" yes "."
Bayer has always championed the safety of Roundup and glyphosate, and industry-funded research has long concluded that the herbicide was relatively safe. Regulators have generally accepted.
In December 2017, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a draft human health risk assessment indicating that glyphosate was probably not carcinogenic for humans. l & # 39; man.
The criticism of Roundup, however, is based in 2015 on the decision of the International Agency for Research on Cancer of the World Health Organization to declare glyphosate a probable carcinogen.
This prompted Mr. Hardeman to take legal action in February 2016 and prompted California to declare glyphosate a known chemical to cause cancer.
In October, a judge reduced this amount to about $ 80 million, finding that the jury price was too high. Monsanto is appealing the verdict, a spokesman said.
Hardeman's case was the first federal case to be tried, said Moore. She explained that the legal team had presented expert testimony and research that Roundup was causing mutations in human cells and that human populations exposed to Roundup were more likely to develop non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
Unsealed documents in 2017 in the case of Mr. Hardeman suggest that Monsanto had phantom searches that were later attributed to academics. The documents indicated that a senior official of the E.P.A. had worked to cancel a federal review of glyphosate.
The documents also revealed that there was some disagreement within the E.P.A. on its own risk assessment.
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