The Jury awards $ 2 billion in damages following a comparative trial on weed cancer: NPR

A California jury awarded a couple more than $ 2 billion in a verdict against Monsanto, a subsidiary of Bayer. This is the third recent court ruling regarding the claim that the company's Roundup weed killer has caused cancer.

The Alameda County Jury, just east of San Francisco, decided that the couple Alva and Alberta Pilliod, of Livermore, California, had contracted non-Hodgkin's lymphoma because of their use of the drug. Glyphosate herbicide. They each received $ 1 billion in punitive damages and $ 55 million in additional collective damages.

Many legal experts believe that the damage will be significantly reduced on appeal.

The verdict represents the third legal setback of this type for the Californian company since mid-2018. In March, a San Francisco jury awarded an 80-million-dollar man for blaming his cancer for heavy use of Roundup. In August 2018, another San Francisco jury awarded $ 289 million to a fourth applicant. On appeal, a judge reduced the payment to $ 78 million. Bayer appeals each of these verdicts. And the company insists that there is no connection between Roundup and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

"Bayer is disappointed with the jury's decision and will appeal the verdict in this case, which directly contradicts the US Environmental Protection Agency's preliminary decision on the revision of the registration, the consensus among the main regulators of the around the world that glyphosate products can be safely used and that glyphosate is not carcinogenic, and the 40 years of thorough scientific research on which their favorable conclusions are based, "the company said in a statement. communicated.

At least one environmental group hailed the verdict.

Ken Cook, Chair of the Environmental Working Group, said: "The cloud looming over Bayer will only get bigger and darker, as more and more juries learn how Monsanto manipulated its own research, collaborated with regulators and intimidated scientists to keep glyphosate-related cancer risks secret. "

Four years ago, a UN-sponsored scientific agency said that Roundup probably caused cancer. As reported by Dan Charles of NPR, the findings of the International Agency for Research on Cancer prompted Monsanto to launch a bitter campaign to discredit the IARC's findings.

The company's internal emails, released as part of a lawsuit against the company, show how Monsanto recruited outside scientists to co-write reports defending the safety of glyphosate, sold under the name Roundup brand Monsanto's director, William Heydens, proposed to the company Heydens wrote in an email: "We would reduce costs by writing and they would only change and sign their name so to speak." Heydens writes that it is so that Monsanto had "treated" a previous document on the safety of glyphosate. "

More than 13,000 other lawsuits have been filed against its subsidiary, Monsanto, the maker of Roundup.

After three jury verdicts in California, a trial is scheduled for August in St. Louis County, Missouri, where Monsanto's former headquarters were located.