Class Action Lawsuit Over Roundup Contamination Filed Against Honey Manufacturer

The makers of Sue Bee Honey face a class action lawsuit that alleges consumers were misled about the purity of their products, after the honey was found to be contaminated with high levels of glyphosate, the active ingredient in the weedkiller Roundup, which has been linked to a potential risk of cancer. 

Susan Tran filed a complaint (PDF) against Sioux Honey Associatiom in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on January 23, seeking class action status for all consumers who have purchased Sue Bee honey products.

The lawsuit is similar to another class action filed by the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) and Beyond Pesticides in November 2016. Both claims indicate the manufacturer made deceptive and misleading statements, which fail to honestly report the presence of Roundup residue and the potential health risks.

“With the knowledge of such consumer preferences and intending to capitalize on them, Defendant labels its Sue Bee Products as ‘Pure,’ ‘100% Pure,’ and/or ‘Natural.’ It further promotes and advertises its Sue Bee Products as ‘100% pure, all-natural American honey,’” the Tran lawsuit states. “These claims are false, deceptive, and misleading. The Sue Bee Products at issue are not ‘Pure,’ ‘100% Pure,’ ‘Natural,’ or ‘all-natural’ and instead contain glyphosate, a synthetic chemical.”

The lawsuits come after recent revelations about FDA research that found high levels of Roundup contamination in honey.

The FDA findings were first leaked by the food watchdog group U.S. Right to Know in September 2016. The group obtained records from the FDA, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Many were heavily redacted, blocking out large portions of text. However, the records show that FDA researchers had trouble finding honey that does not contain glyphosate residue.

Concerns over the potential side effects of Roundup exposure rose to the forefront in March 2015, when the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) determined that glyphosate is likely a cancer-causing agent. The IARC specifically linked the Roundup to an increased risk of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

In February 2016, the FDA announced that, for the first time, it would begin looking for glyphosate residue in the U.S. food supply. However, those efforts ground to a halt later in the year when the FDA indicated that it had problems properly equipping its labs and determining correct testing protocols.

Last month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) held a four-day hearing on glyphosate safety, with a panel of scientific advisers questioning the agency’s methodologies on determining that the weed killer was safe.

The panel has 90 days to pour over the testimony, literature and evidence presented during the hearing, after which it will submit recommendations to the EPA. Those recommendations are non-binding, but usually have significant influence on the agency’s final decisions.

Monsanto now faces a growing number of Roundup cancer lawsuits filed throughout the United States, typically involving individuals diagnosed with a form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma following heavy exposure to the herbicide as a farm or agricultural worker. The complaints allege that the manufacturer recklessly promoted Roundup and pushed greater and greater use of the chemical, without disclosing the potential health risks.

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.

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.

This latest class action lawsuit over Roundup seeks damages for consumers who bought glyphosate-contaminated honey, asking that they be refunded for the premium price they paid for honey believed to be pure and all-natural.