Mantle Cell Lymphoma Diagnosis Linked to Decades of Roundup Use, Lawsuit Alleges

A woman diagnosed with Mantle Cell Lymphoma following decades of Roundup use on a small farm in Idaho, has filed a lawsuit against Monsanto, indicating that the company withheld information about the risk that their popular weedkiller may cause cancer, including various sub-types of non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

The complaint (PDF) was filed last month in the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho by Lynda Jean Wolters, who indicates that she worked on a family-owned farm for nearly half of her life, where Roundup was regularly applied by crop dusting planes and ground application. The popular glyphosate-based weedkiller was also used around the house, and from 1986 to 2016, Wolters indicates that she used it personally, mixing and applying the product to weeds on her own property.

Wolters indicates that it never occurred to her that Roundup use may cause cancer, as Monsanto marketed that glyphosate contained in their product could kill almost every weed without harming either people or the environment. However, glyphosate has recently been identified as a potential human carcinogen, increasing the risk of non-Hodgkins lymphoma and other cancers.

According to the lawsuit, Wolters was diagnosed with Mantle Cell Lymphoma in September 2016, which is a sub-type of non-Hodgkins lymphoma that she blames on the use of Roundup. The cancer is considered one of the more dangerous forms of cancer, because it is hard to detect and often not diagnosed until after it has spread to bone marrow or the gastrointestinal tract.

The case joins a growing number of similar Roundup use lawsuits filed in recent months against Monsanto by farmers, landscapers, agricultural workers and others exposed to the weedkiller throughout the United states. Each of the plaintiffs raise similar allegations that the manufacturer provided false and misleading information about Roundup, often suggesting that it was “safer than table salt” or “practically non-toxic” to mammals, birds and fish.

“Monsanto has falsified data and has attacked legitimate studies that revealed Roundup’s dangers,” the lawsuit filed by Wolters states. “Monsanto has led a prolonged campaign of misinformation to convince government agencies, farmers and the general population that Roundup is safe.”

Concerns about the link between Roundup and lymphoma surfaced in March 2015, when the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) determined that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, is likely a cancer-causing agent. In particular, the IARC report links the side effects of Roundup to an increased risk of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Wolters and other plaintiffs indicate that they 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.

Given similar questions of fact and law raised in complaints filed throughout the federal court system, centralized pretrial proceedings have been established before U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria in the Northern District of California, where Wolters’ case will also be consolidated for coordinated discovery.

Known as a federal MDL, or multidistrict litigation, the centralized management is designed to reduce duplicative discovery into common issues in the cases, avoid conflicting pretrial rulings from different courts and to serve the convenience of parties, witnesses and the courts. Following the MDL proceedings before Judge Chhabria, if Roundup settlements or another resolution for the cases are not reached, each individual complaint may be remanded back to the federal courts where it was originally filed for an individual trial date.