While in France, the debate on the dangerousness of glyphosateis at the heart of the news, in San Francisco (United States), a Californian jury this Monday, May 13 condemned the German group Bayer to pay 1.8 billion euros to an American couple. For thirty years, Alva and Alberta Pilliod have used Roundup, a herbicide containing the molecule and marketed by Monsanto (acquired by Bayer last year). Today they are both with cancer. Justice finally ruled in their favor.
The Oakland Superior Court jury felt that the company should have alerted its users to the possible dangers of its product, and that it was responsible for the development of their products. non-Hodgkin lymphoma. “We would have liked Monsanto to warn us that there was something on the label [qui dise] that it could cause cancer, we would not have used it ”, said Alberta Pilliod at a press conference, relayed by Le Figaro.
13,400 legal actions
In a statement, still repeated by the French daily, the firm Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman which defended the couple added: “The jury felt that exposure to Roundup caused [les cancers] of the Pilliods and that Monsanto had failed [à l’obligation de] warn of this serious health hazard. Importantly, the jury also recognized that Monsanto had acted with malice, oppression or fraud and should be punished for its behavior ”. This is the third consecutive judgment lost by the Bayer group, and the heaviest fine that has so far been imposed.
The company denies that Roundup based on glyphosate is carcinogenic, citing in particular the opinion of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). At the end of April, this reaffirmed that the molecule was “Probably not carcinogenic to humans”. In a statement, Bayer therefore announced its intention to appeal. In the United States, the group faces more than 13,400 lawsuits. But the legal battles are long. In France, it took ten years for a Charente farmer to be recognized as a victim of the herbicide sold by Monsanto.
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