U.S. Supreme Court rejects Bayer’s Roundup appeal

Judges on Tuesday upheld a $25 million judgment in favor of Edwin Hardeman, a California man who says he developed cancer from using Roundup for decades to treat poison ivy and weeds on his property in the San Francisco Bay. Mr. Hardeman’s lawsuit had served as a test case for thousands of similar lawsuits.

The highest court’s decision comes amid a series of Roundup-related court battles that have gone in different directions.

On Friday, a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected a 2020 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finding that glyphosate does not pose a serious health risk. and is not not likely to cause cancer in humans. The Court of Appeal ordered theEPA to reconsider its conclusion.

For its part, Bayer has won four consecutive lawsuits in state court against people who claim to have had cancer from their use of Roundup. The latest verdict in favor of the company came last week in Oregon.

Bayer had argued that federal regulators had repeatedly determined that its products were safe and that lawsuits based on the claims under state laws should be dismissed.

Last year, Bayer set aside $4.5 billion to deal with claims that glyphosate, the weed-killing ingredient in Roundup, causes non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a type of cancer. The company previously took a nearly $10 billion charge for previous rounds of litigation.

Bayer had also warned that allowing such claims would hurt innovation in agriculture and healthcare, among others.

Bayer inherited Roundup and litigation when it acquired multinational Monsanto in 2018.

“Probably carcinogenic to humans”

L’EPA indicates on its website that there is no no evidence that glyphosate causes cancer in humans. But in 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which is part of the World Health Organization, classified glyphosate as probably carcinogenic to humans. The agency said it relied on evidence limited cancer in humans and evidence sufficient cancer in the animals studied.

The Justice Department, which had sided with Bayer in lower courts under the Trump administration, recommended the High Court not get involved.

Bayer maintains the product is safe, but said it will replace glyphosate in Roundup for residential use starting in 2023. Products containing glyphosate will still be available for professional and agricultural use.