A judge cleared a common garden weed control product of any links to cancer in a historic lawsuit tried in federal court. The evidence linking a component in a widely used weedkiller to cancer is insufficient, according to a federal court judge in Australia.
In Thursday afternoon’s ruling in the class action lawsuit challenging the pesticide Roundup, Justice Michael Lee issued his opinion.
The current case was filed by Kelvin McNickle with the support of Maurice Blackburn, and it claimed that the weedkiller was carcinogenic and that the makers were careless about the dangers the product presented to consumers. They said that 800 non-Hodgkin lymphoma patients from Australia developed cancer after being exposed to Roundup’s key component, glyphosate.
The claim was that twenty years of exposure to glyphosate while working for his family’s Queensland vegetation management business caused Mr. McNickle, who is in his early 40s, to acquire non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Since 2019, the makers of Roundup—who maintain their product is safe—have been embroiled in legal disputes with Australian class action claimants.
The question of whether Roundup’s active ingredient, glyphosate, is carcinogenic remains unanswered, according to Justice Michael Lee’s ruling. After hearing Mr. McNickle testify that the substance caused drips that seeped through his clothing and into his flesh, Justice Lee stated that he had heard similar testimony and was unconvinced.
Mr. McNickle said he would inhale the mist that would fly around when it was used.
Eight hundred individuals, represented by Maurice Blackburn, said that they had pretty substantial exposure to Roundup and filed a massive class action lawsuit on their behalf. The large compensation law company is “carefully reviewing the judgment.”
Similar trials were heard in the US before Justice Lee made his conclusion.
In 2020, the worldwide pharmaceutical behemoth paid nearly 11 billion dollars to resolve over 100,000 cases, the amount paid by Monsanto’s parent firm Bayer.
Roundup is still sold in Australia.
