Gardener Awarded $78 Million After Roundup Weed Killer Gave Him Cancer

Pennsylvania gardener William Melissen had been using Roundup weed killer for almost 30 years before being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a type of blood cancer, in 2020. He and his wife Margaret sued Bayer, the current owner of the Monsanto company (the original maker of Roundup), in 2021, arguing that the product had caused his illness. A Philadelphia jury agreed with the Melissens, awarding them $3 million in compensatory damages and $75 million in punitive damages.

The case is part of an ongoing controversy surrounding glyphosate, the key ingredient in Roundup. A 2022 study revealed that 80 percent of Americans have the chemical in their urine, raising concerns about widespread exposure. Glyphosate has already been linked to cancer by organizations such as the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, which classified it as “probably carcinogenic to humans” in 2015, and the state of California, which requires cancer warning labels on products containing the chemical.

Bayer, which acquired Monsanto in 2018, has been defending itself against numerous lawsuits related to Roundup. The company has faced several multi-million-dollar verdicts, although thus far it has won a majority of the cases brought to trial. Despite these victories, Bayer has paid out significant settlements, including $10.9 billion in 2020 to resolve tens of thousands of claims.

To learn more about the damaging effects of Roundup, see this article on our website.