Beginning of the Roundup Cancer Clinical Trial

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – A jury in a San Francisco federal court will decide whether the Roundup heroic killer has caused the cancer of a California man during a trial that allegedly began Monday and that plaintiffs' lawyers could help determine the fate of hundreds of similar lawsuits.

Edwin Hardeman, 70, is the second largest petitioner to appear before the court of thousands of people who say that the weed killer of food giant Monsanto is causing cancer.

According to Monsanto, studies have shown that the active ingredient in Roundup, glyphosate, is safe.

In August, a San Francisco jury awarded $ 289 million to another man after determining that Roundup had caused his non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. A judge subsequently reduced the amount to $ 78 million and Monsanto appealed.

Hardeman's trial is before a different judge and may be more meaningful. US Judge Vince Chhabria, who oversees hundreds of Roundup trials, has ruled the case of Hardeman and two other "pending trials".

The outcome of opposing trials can help lawyers decide whether to proceed to court or settle it. A jury verdict in favor of Hardeman and the other witness-plaintiffs would give their lawyers a strong position in all negotiations for a settlement of disputes over the remaining cases in Chhabria, said Professor David Levine. at the University of California, Hastings College of Law. follow-up of the Roundup trial.

Thousands of other Roundup lawsuits are pending in the state courts of the country.

Many government regulators have rejected the link between cancer and glyphosate. Monsanto vehemently denied such a connection, claiming that hundreds of studies have established that the chemical is safe.

Monsanto developed glyphosate in the 1970s and the weed killer is now sold in more than 160 countries and widely used in the United States.

The herbicide has been the subject of increased surveillance after the International Center for Research on Cancer, based in France, which is part of the World Health Organization, the ## 147 ######################################################################### Rated it as "probable carcinogen for humans" in 2015.

Prosecutions against Monsanto followed. Monsanto criticized the opinion of the international research agency. The United States Environmental Protection Agency stated that glyphosate was safe for people if it was used according to the label's instructions for use.

Hardeman began using Roundup products to treat poisoned oak, overgrowth, and weeds on his 56-acre property in Sonoma County in the 1980s, and continued using them until 2012, according to his lawyers. He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2015.

In a setback for Hardeman, Chhabria made a decision last month dividing his trial into two phases. Hardeman's lawyers will first have to convince the jurors that his use of Roundup caused his non-Hodgkin's lymphoma before he could plead for punitive damages.

The trial is expected to last about a month.