A class action lawsuit claiming Bayer’s Roundup weedkiller can cause lymphoma has been dismissed by an Australian judge, a ruling the company said it would seek to leverage in similar cases being fought in the United States.
Reuters reports that more than 1 000 people had joined the lawsuit, claiming Roundup’s active ingredient, glyphosate, caused their non-Hodgkins lymphoma (NHL).
The judge, Michael Lee of Australia’s Federal Court, said he was not satisfied there was enough evidence that the chemical caused the blood cancer in humans, after reviewing three types of scientific studies – epidemiological, animal studies and mechanistic evidence – and scrutinising the links between glyphosate and lymphoma.
“It is not proven in this proceeding on a balance of probabilities… that throughout the relevant period use of, and or exposure to Roundup products, increased an individual’s risk of developing NHL,” he said.
The claimants’ law firm was reviewing the ruling before deciding whether to appeal.
The lead claimant, Kelvin McNickle (41), said he used Roundup to spray weeds for more than two decades on his family’s property and while working for a vegetation management company. He developed non-Hodgkins lymphoma at 35.
German chemicals and pharmaceuticals company Bayer has long maintained that Roundup and glyphosate are safe. It has been battling lawsuits over Roundup in the United States since it bought the product’s owner Monsanto in 2018. It still faces more than 50 000 outstanding Roundup claims there.
It has prevailed in 14 of the past 20 US trials but racked up a string of losses in late 2023 and early 2024, with more than $4bn in damages awarded. Some of the amounts awarded have since been reduced but the string of wins for plaintiffs shattered investor and company hopes that the worst of the Roundup litigation was over.
The class action in Australia against Bayer subsidiaries is one of around 40 similar cases filed outside the US, most of them in Canada.
Roundup has been in use worldwide since the 1970s, and been under scrutiny since the WHO’s cancer research agency concluded in 2015 that glyphosate was probably carcinogenic to humans, though without concluding whether it posed a risk in real-world use.
Bayer has replaced glyphosate with new active ingredients in its products for household use in the US to reduce the risk of litigation. as most claims have come from home users. It continues to sell glyphosate-based weedkillers to farmers, who rely on it heavily.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Bayer triumph after latest Roundup cancer trial
Judge sceptical about Bayer settlement of Roundup claims
Another legal win for Monsanto in Roundup cancer claim battles