Retired farmer says Roundup made him ill, intends to sue

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This article was published 04/09/2019 (2392 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A retired Manitoba farmer is attempting to launch a class-action lawsuit against ag-corp giant Monsanto Co. and parent company Bayer AG, alleging he developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma after years of exposure to the weed killer Roundup.

“In the old days, growing up on the farm, you didn’t know any of this stuff was toxic,” said the Lorette-area man, who spoke to a reporter on condition his name not be published. “No one was aware it was something you needed a haz-mat suit for. We didn’t realize it was a problem.”

The man said he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 1996. He said his wife approached Alberta-based law firm Merchant Law Group about a month ago, after learning of multimillion-dollar settlements in favour of Roundup users in the United States.

“It hasn’t been a long time that we connected the two,” the man said. “I would never know how anybody could prove their cancer could be linked to Roundup… but we thought we would get on the list.”

The Manitoba class action, if certified, would be open to all users of Roundup, including those who don’t have non-Hodgkin lymphoma, lawyer Tony Merchant said.

“When judges certify, they certify for all users, not just the users who have a problem,” Merchant said.

Merchant Law Group has launched similar class actions in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Quebec and may ultimately proceed with one national class action that would be open to all Canadian Roundup users.

“We intend to prove that the probability of getting cancer, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma in particular, is much higher if you have been exposed to Roundup,” he said.

In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer reclassified glyphosate, the key ingredient in Roundup, as “probably carcinogenic to humans,” the Manitoba lawsuit says.

The lawsuit cites U.S. litigation against Monsanto, including the case of a former groundskeeper who was awarded US$289 million by a jury after arguing his terminal cancer was the result of years of exposure to Roundup.

The award was later reduced to US$78 million and is now under appeal before the California Court of Appeal.

“Monsanto, and subsequently Bayer, have claimed and continue to claim that Roundup creates no unreasonable risks to human health,” the lawsuit says.

Monsanto was “reckless and fraudulent” in misrepresenting the safety of its product, the lawsuit alleges, and took no care to warn users of its hazards.

“The defects and risks associated with the product were in the defendants’ exclusive knowledge and control,” the lawsuit says. “The extent of the defects and risks were not known and could not have been known by the plaintiff or the class members.”

Monsanto discovered the herbicidal properties of glyphosate in 1970 and began marketing Roundup four years later, the lawsuit says. Today, glyphosate is included in more than 130 products for sale in Canada.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca