Monsanto has reached a provisional $7.25 billion settlement with US law firms representing clients who claim that exposure to its pesticide, Roundup, caused them to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL).

The settlement was filed in the St Louis Circuit Court in Missouri on Tuesday and still needs court approval, according to an announcement from Bayer, which bought Monsanto in 2018.

It covers plaintiffs who allege exposure to Roundup before 17 February and currently have a medical diagnosis of NHL, or who receive a medical diagnosis within 16 years following the final approval of the agreement.

“Monsanto is taking the Roundup-related actions solely to contain the litigation, and the settlement agreements do not contain any admission of liability or wrongdoing,” according to the company statement.

“Indeed, leading regulators worldwide, including the US EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] and EU regulatory bodies, continue to conclude based on an extensive body of science, that glyphosate-based herbicides – critical tools that farmers rely on to produce affordable food and feed the world – can be used safely and are not carcinogenic.”

However, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans” back in 2015.

IARC made its decision based on “limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans for non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The evidence in humans is from studies of exposures, mostly agricultural, in the USA, Canada, and Sweden published since 2001. In addition, there is convincing evidence that glyphosate also can cause cancer in laboratory animals.”

Right to appeal

The Roundup settlement proposal comes as Bayer is preparing to appeal against $1.25 million awarded by ​​the Missouri Circuit Court to NHL patient John Durnell, who sued the company for its failure to warn customers that Roundup could cause cancer.

The company stated in court papers in the Durnell case in April last year that it faced claims from “more than 100,000 plaintiffs across the country that … seek to hold Monsanto liable for not warning users that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, causes cancer”. 

It has settled around 130,000 claims but still faces around 67,000 active claims, many of which are based on state requirements about cancer warning labels.

Bayer argues that the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) is responsible for issuing cancer warnings and that this is a federal decision that should  supercede state law warning claims.

“For decades, EPA has exercised its authority under FIFRA to find that Monsanto’s Roundup product line and its active ingredient, glyphosate, do not cause cancer in humans,” Bayer states in the court papers.

“Consistent with that understanding, EPA has repeatedly approved Roundup’s label without a cancer warning. FIFRA prohibits Monsanto from making any substantive change to an EPA-approved label unless it first obtains EPA’s permission.”

Trump support

Bayer, which donated $1 million to Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration, successfully lobbied the Trump administration for support to ensure that the Supreme Court would hear its appeal against the Durnell award.

Last year, Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed a brief with the Supreme Court, supporting Monsanto’s argument that federal law was responsible for cancer warnings, and urged the Supreme Court to review the company’s case.

“A positive ruling on the question before the Supreme Court should largely foreclose present and future claims based on state label-based warning theories – including the pending appeals, as well as opt-outs from the class,” said Bayer, which noted that “a favorable ruling by the Supreme Court would provide essential regulatory clarity.”

However, the Trump administration’s intervention has angered “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) supporters.

“President Trump specifically promised to address the harms from pesticides. This move to support the Supreme Court in hearing Bayer’s case for federal preemption of state laws that protect our safety could not stray further from that promise he made to American citizens,”  said Kelly Ryerson, co-executive director of American Regeneration and a MAHA leader.

Manipulation of science

Meanwhile, a scientific paper written 25 years ago, claiming that glyphosate posed little risk to people, has finally been withdrawn after it was found that the authors relied solely on Monsanto studies and did not acknowledge that Monsanto staff had assisted in writing the paper.

The study by Gary Williams, Robert Kroes and Ian Munro was published in 2000 in the journal, Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, but only retracted last December.

Making the announcement, journal co-editor Martin van den Berg cited several problems, including the “authorship of this paper, validity of the research findings in the context of misrepresentation of the contributions by the authors and the study sponsor and potential conflicts of interest of the authors”.

Image Credits: Pesticide Action Network.