Monsanto’s request for a new trial in the landmark case against it in the US has been rejected by a California judge and the jury’s verdict that Roundup caused Dewayne Johnson’s cancer has been upheld.
Dewayne Lee Johnson, a 46-year old father of three and former school groundskeeper, was initially awarded $289 million after alleging that Roundup caused his cancer, and Monsanto failed to warn him of the risks associated with using the product.
While the judge has reduced Johnson’s damages to $78 million, the jury’s verdict that Monsanto was responsible for “negligent failure, knew or should have known that its product was dangerous” and “had acted with malice or oppression”, was upheld.
Tragically, Johnson may only have months to live and is not expected to survive beyond two years.
Monsanto continues to argue that Glyphosate is safe and its lawyer has indicated the company will appeal the decision. Monsanto’s stock price has fallen 8.6% in response to the verdict.
The tide is turning but not quickly enough, which is why it’s so important that we speak up about this in our local communities.
We have reached an exciting milestone in this petition with more than 5,000 signatures in 2 weeks.
With a huge ground-swell of support, we mustn’t underestimate the impact that all 5,000 of us can have by reaching out to our local councils and letting them know how we feel about the use of glyphosate in public spaces, and continuing to share this petition far and wide to help us reach our next goal of 10,000 signatures.