Lawsuit Alleges Roundup Exposure Caused Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma

A California rancher has filed a product liability lawsuit against Monsanto, alleging that the side effects of exposure to Roundup, it’s popular weed killer, caused him to develop non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma cancer. 

In a complaint (PDF) filed earlier this month in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Peter Johansing indicates that Monssanto failed to warn him and other consumers about the human health risks associated with Roundup, which he indicates was regularly used on his family’s ranch from 1975 until early 2016.

Johansing was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphma (NHL) in January 2004. However, he did not recognize the link between his cancer and Roundup until March 2015, when the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on cancer (IARC) ruled that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, was a probable carcinogen. The IARC specifically tied Roundup exposure to an increased risk of NHL.

“Monsanto has represented Roundup as being safe to humans and the environment since it began selling the herbicide. Indeed, Monsanto has proclaimed and continues to proclaim to the world, and particularly to United States consumers, that glyphosate-based herbicides, including Roundup, create no unreasonable risks to human health or to the environment,” the lawsuit states. “This is untrue. Before glyphosate was first approved by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Monsanto knew that glyphosate could pose significant risks to human health, including a risk of causing cancer. This lawsuit seeks to hold Monsanto accountable for this misconduct.”

The case is one of a growing number of Roundup lawsuits filed against Monsanto in courts throughout the United States, alleging that farm workers, landscapers and others in the agricultural business have been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma following heavy exposure to glyphosate.

The complaints allege that the manufacturer recklessly promoted Roundup and pushed greater and greater use of the chemical, without disclosing the potential health risks.

Roundup is the most widely used glyphosate-based weedkiller on the market, and an estimated 2.6 billion pounds of the herbicide has been sprayed on America’s agricultural land over the two decades since the mid-1990s, when Monsanto introduced “Roundup Ready” crops that are designed to survive being sprayed with with the chemical, killing the weeds but not the crops.

A recent U.S. Geological Survey on glyphosate usage nationwide found that an estimated 2.6 billion pounds of the herbicide has been sprayed on America’s agricultural land over the two decades since the mid-1990s, when Monsanto introduced “Roundup Ready” crops that are designed to survive being sprayed with glyphosate, killing the weeds but not the crops.

In all that time, the FDA has never tested for residue or buildup in the food sold to Americans nationwide. In a report published in 2014, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) criticized the FDA for this deficiency in its pesticide program.

The lawsuits over Roundup allege that plaintiffs may have avoided a diagnosis of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma or other cancers if they had been warned about the Roundup risks for farmers, landscapers and others in the agricultural industry, as safety precautions could have been taken or other products could have been used to control the growth of weeds.