Supreme Court debates lawsuits alleging pesticide causes cancer
The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard arguments in Monsanto v. Durnell, a case which could help determine the future of tens of thousands of lawsuits alleging glyphosate, a common weedkiller component, causes cancer.
On April 27, Supreme Court justices heard arguments regarding whether federal pesticide law preempts label-based failure-to-warn claims where the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has not required a warning and whether Monsanto can be held liable for not adding cancer warnings to labels of their popular Roundup weedkiller.
After a jury ruled in favor of St. Louis, Mo. native John Durnell in 2023 who alleged his exposure to Roundup resulted in developing non-Hodgkin lymphoma – a form of blood cancer – Monsanto was ordered to pay Durnell $1.25 million.
Tens of thousands of similar lawsuits have been filed against Bayer – Monsanto’s parent company – throughout the past decade and according to an April 28 Western Ag Network article, the rulings of Monsanto v. Durnell could impact the future of whether an EPA stamp of approval on a pesticide label is enough to shield Bayer from state warning label lawsuits against glyphosate-based Roundup.
Roundup lawsuits
Bayer is currently facing claims regarding glyphosate-based Roundup’s potential link to cancer from approximately 65,000 plaintiffs in U.S. state and federal courts, according to an April 28 Reuters article written by Diana Novak Jones.
Jones further reports Roundup lawsuits date back to 2015, with a multitude of plaintiffs alleging they developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma and other forms of cancer after using the weedkiller either at home or on the job.
Despite these claims, Roundup remains among the most widely-used weedkillers on the market in the U.S., used in both large-scale agricultural operations and backyard settings.
Bayer removed glyphosate from residential Roundup products from 2021-23, but the chemical is still found in commercial level weedkillers.
The company has pushed back against the allegations, asserting decades of studies have proven Roundup – particularly its active ingredient glyphosate – are safe for human use.
Monsanto v. Durnell
An April 27 Washington Post article written by Justin Jouvenal explains Durnell sued Monsanto in Missouri state court in 2019, alleging exposure to Roundup had caused him to develop a form of blood cancer called non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
According to the article, Durnell used Roundup to spray weeds in parks near his home for roughly two decades before his diagnosis.
In his lawsuit, Durnell’s arguments claimed Monsanto had a duty to warn consumers Roundup was a cancer risk.
“Monsanto has known for decades its popular weed killer Roundup can cause cancer,” wrote Durnell’s attorneys in a Supreme Court filing. “But the company has refused to make its product safer or to inform consumers they should exercise caution when using it. Instead, Monsanto has marketed Roundup as safe to spray in a T-shirt and shorts.”
A Missouri jury ruled in Durnell’s favor, ordering Monsanto to pay $1.25 million in damages. After an appeal by Monsanto was rejected, the company asked the Supreme Court to take up the case.
Bayer argues plaintiffs cannot claim the company violated state laws by failing to warn about cancer risks posed by Roundup because the EPA has found no such risk and requires no such warning on the product’s label per provisions in the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), according to Reuters, and FIFRA’s express preemption clause says states cannot impose labeling requirements going beyond what federal law demands.
What’s at stake
The Supreme Court’s decision has the potential to impact existing and future Roundup-related lawsuits against Bayer.
Monsanto has removed Roundup from the consumer market but it is still available to farmers, according to the Washington Post, and the company claims allowing additional lawsuits to go forward could “threaten Monsanto’s ability to continue to supply glyphosate to farmers who need it to remain world leaders in food production.”
The American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) advocated against eliminating Roundup from the agricultural marketplace in a friend-of-the-court brief presented during the hearing and referenced in the Washington Post article, claiming the weedkiller’s removal could force U.S. farmers to rely on herbicides with even greater health risks.
“To remove glyphosate from the market would pose an immediate, devastating risk to America’s food supply,” AFBF states. “Farmers depend on this safe herbicide to support high-yield food and fiber production, season after season. Glyphosate is used on roughly 300 million acres of U.S. farmland.”
Other groups including farm worker groups, cancer prevention organizations and environmentalists continue to argue Roundup poses risks and should be labeled accordingly.
“Cancer is an epidemic, afflicting more than one in three Americans within their lifetimes,” the Center for Food Safety and other groups wrote in a friend-of-the-court brief referenced in the Washington Post article. “The court should not afford Monsanto immunity for its products’ risks and deny Americans their right to know the risks of an inherently dangerous product.”
For now, the Supreme Court is continuing to consider the case, and a decision in Monsanto v. Durnell is expected by the end of June.
Grace Skavdahl is the editor of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup. Send comments on this article to roundup@wylr.net.
