Trial began Tuesday in St. Louis in a lawsuit accusing Monsanto and its weed killer Roundup of causing a man’s lymphoma, and this hearing will be a little different than past such trials in that the product in question is a more potent version called “QuikPRO.”
The case in the 22nd Judicial Circuit Court of Missouri is being streamed live courtesy of Courtroom View Network.
Past trials have focused on regular Roundup products, both spray and concentrated formulas that first came on the market in 1974. QuikPRO came on the market in 2001.
During opening remarks, plaintiff attorney David Wool of Denver on behalf of Nathan Evans said QuikPRO contained 73% glyphosate, the alleged cancer-causing agent in Roundup. The earlier marketed ready-to-use product (hand-spray) contained 2% glyphosate.
“It (glyphosate) adheres to the skin of a plant and gets inside and kills it,” Wool told a jury. “It also does the same thing to the human skin. It gets into the bloodstream and pollutes the lymphatic system.”
Wool said the mixture of chemicals in Roundup contains other carcinogens, one called N-Nitroso, and formaldehyde.
“These are at the top of a carcinogenic pyramid,” he said.
Wool accused Monsanto officials of hiding their knowledge of the product’s risks from regulators including those of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). He added the company had hidden the danger from the public for decades.
“QuikPRO is the most concentrated and fastest killing product Monsanto has ever made,” Wool said and then asked the question, “How did QuikPRO come to market?”
He said a patent for glyphosate expired in 2000 and the company got a new patent for a powder-type product which was prone to produce breathable dust. Wool added that Monsanto officials such as Dr. Donna Farmer expressed concern about the new product.
“You can’t sell this stuff in Europe,” Wool said.
Wool said when the QuikPRO product originally came on the market in 2001, the product required the user to wear a full body protective suit (PPE) with gloves. Later it was revised to wearing long sleeve shirts and pants.
“It’s important to let the EPA know what’s in the product,” Wool said. “Monsanto never reported anything to the EPA.”
Wool said animal studies conducted on mice showed the substance produced tumors and additional studies showed damage to DNA and genes. He accused the company of hiring science experts that Monsanto officials hoped would produce studies downplaying the carcinogenic risks of the product.
He produced an email where Farmer advised, “You can’t say Roundup is not a carcinogen,” adding that definitive testing was inadequate.
Wool also claimed the company did “ghost-written” papers, with company officials writing up a study (finding no carcinogen) and then having a scientist who didn’t write it, sign it.
“This is completely unethical,” Wool said. “We’re going to prove Roundup is dangerous and that Monsanto was negligent with QuikPRO, it hid the truth from the public and regulators like the EPA. The motive for Monsanto was money.”
Wool cited a 2015 finding by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which found that glyphosate was a class 2-A carcinogen and a “probable cause” of cancer.
He also described an Agricultural Health Study defense attorneys have often cited backing their position in past trials. A 2018 addendum in the ongoing AG study, the Andreotti paper, in 2018 said there was no proven link between glyphosate and lymphoma. Wool called that finding “flawed.”
Monsanto attorney Philip S. Beck, with the BartlitBeck law firm in Chicago, said plaintiff Evans in 2019 was told by doctors he was cancer-free with a 99% chance of no recurrence.
“That’s the good news but the chemotherapy can have serious side effects (weakness)," Beck said. "Since 2018, he (Evans) has done well. Fighting cancer is tough and I don’t mean to minimize it, but he (Evans) has won his fight.”
Beck said the great majority of lymphomas are caused by natural (cell) copy errors that happen in the human body.
“Roundup and QuikPRO do not cause cancer,” he said.
Beck said when the use of Roundup began to skyrocket in the 1990s, the cases of NHL remained flat.
“If Roundup caused the cancer there would be an increase in lymphoma cases, but that is not what happened.”
Beck accused Wool of using email snippets quoting Monsanto officials such as Farmer that gave a distorted picture and were taken out of context.
“They (plaintiff attorneys) are not going to ask her (Farmer) about these emails but in two weeks we will,” Beck said. “I ask you (jury) to be patient, the story is much different.”
Beck said lymphomas are usually created by factors such as heredity, environment and cell replication errors.
“A cell that has a copy error passes it on,” he explained. “It happens all the time and the body is good at correcting those. But sometimes a cell mistake winds up being harmful. The (bad) cells keep reproducing like crazy and are not told to die. They continue to grow and invade organs of the body.
"A cell that has a copy error passes it on,” Beck added. “That’s what a replication error is.”
Beck said IARC was not a regulatory agency like the EPA but a group who met (in Europe) for only one week and didn’t do any meaningful research on glyphosate. He indicated IARC tended to brand everything as potentially hazardous including red meat consumption and working late hours.
“It (IARC) was not real world,” he commented.
Beck also took issue with Wool citing mouse study results saying that mice were naturally susceptible to lymphoma and defended the agricultural study as the biggest most in-depth look at glyphosate.
He said world health organizations the European Chemicals Agency and Canada Health had found no carcinogenic link with glyphosate and the idea that mixing chemicals would produce a carcinogen was not science but speculation.
Beck said Wool had tried to present QuikPRO as a substitute for Roundup by acquiring a new patent when it was not and was only 1% of Monsanto’s glyphosate products.
He also disputed the idea Monsanto had dishonestly designed ghost-written science papers saying that all of the company’s funding and science findings were fully disclosed.
“I hope you’ll keep your eye on the science,” he told the jury, “and that you’ll return a verdict in favor of Monsanto.”
Judge Michael Mullen is presiding.