Editor’s NOTE: Correct me if I am wrong, but in reading through this posting, although the writer does alright presenting both sides of the case, to me it appears that she is more supportive of the Bayer-Monsanto position. As for me – I spent 21 months ‘In Country.” I did not love the “smell of Agent Orange in the morning!” ~ Jeffrey Bennett, Editor and Publisher
Gardeners Alva and Alberta Pilliod say they used Monsanto’s Roundup spray to keep weeds off their driveway for more than two decades, applying the herbicide while wearing flip flip flops, shorts, and tank tops.. Now, they both have Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (NHL). In a lawsuit, they were awarded $2.05 billion in damages in May.
School groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson, now in his 40s, also used to spray Roundup up to 30 times every summer. He has the same blood cancer as the Pilliods, and won nearly $80 million in a suit last year.
A third man, Edwin Hardeman, used Roundup for more than 25 years to keep weeds off his oak trees. He got NHL, too. A jury in California ruled in March that Roundup was a “substantial factor” in his diagnosis.
More than 13,000 similar lawsuits have popped up in the US. Almost all are being filed by gardeners, groundskeepers, and other professional weed-whackers who allege that their consistent, repeated use of Roundup gave them cancer. Continue reading →