A jury said on Friday that Bayer’s Roundup did not cause an Oregon man’s cancer. The decision, delivered in the Circuit Court of Jackson County, Ore., marked the fourth-consecutive win in court for the company.
“The jury’s unanimous verdict in favor of the company brings this trial to a successful conclusion and is consistent with the evidence in this case that Roundup does not cause cancer and was not the cause of Mr. Johnson’s (one of the plaintiffs) cancer,” Bayer said, in a prepared statement.
“While we have great sympathy for Mr. Johnson, the jury has weighed the evidence from both sides in this case and concluded that Roundup is not responsible for his injuries,” the statement said.
Costly Lawsuits Piled Up
The Oregon case marks the latest in a long line of Roundup-focused lawsuits the company has had to contend with in the past few years. On its website, the company says it has already settled 107,000 of 138,000 cases, most of which have come out of the U.S. residential lawn and garden marketplace.
In spring of 2021, Bayer announced its decision to pull out of the law and garden market. The company developed a process, its Five-Point Plan to Close the Roundup Litigation, for guidance. The plan is available for review at https://bit.ly/3OclE14.
Company Pivots In The Marketplace
During a conference call with investors in July 2021, Liam Condon, then president for the Bayer Crop Science Division, said the company would be replacing glyphosate in the lawn and garden market with active ingredients already known and well-established.
“What is new will be the formulation or formulations and will include multiple active ingredients,” Condon said during the call, noting the product or products will still be sold under the Roundup brand.
Late last year, Bayer created a new webpage (EPA’s Review of Glyphosate Safety | Global (bayer.com) that hosts links to scientific safety studies on its glyphosate products.
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