Fighting back tears on the witness stand, Lacey Routley recounted for a jury the agony her mother Sharlean Gordon went through during treatments for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, in a trial to determine if Monsanto’s weed killer Roundup caused the cancer.
“She’s not anything like what she used to be,” Routley said of her mother. “Not a word comes close to describing it. It was traumatic.”
Gordon claims Roundup caused her to develop NHL, also called large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), a rare cancer of the blood. The disease accounts for only 4% of cancers, or found in about 20 out of 100,000 people.
After noticing a lump in her groin, Gordon was diagnosed in 2006. The cancer went into remission but then recurred. Gordon underwent further treatments and was told by doctors in 2009 that she was cured. The lawsuit seeks damages for medical bills, anxiety and suffering caused by the disease including the continuing worry that it could return.
The trial in the 21st Judicial Circuit Court of Missouri in St. Louis County is being streamed live courtesy of Courtroom View Network.
Called as a witness by plaintiff attorneys, Routley said her mother had to endure several years of painful treatments and sickness while struggling to survive.
“What kind of person was she before the illness?” asked Aimee Wagstaff, Gordon's attorney.
“She was up and about, she was active,” Routley said. “She was busy.”
Routley told the jury her mother’s property in Illinois had a large yard with vegetable gardens, fruit trees, plants and flowers. Gordon reportedly used three versions of the Roundup spray. One was a concentrate that had to be mixed with water before spraying. She used the chemical for 25 years.
Routley said her mother’s cancer diagnosis and treatment at a hospital in Chicago caused her (Routley) to suffer anxiety attacks.
“My heart was racing,” Routley said. “All our plans were changed. I didn’t know if she was going to be there, you don’t know how long she’s going to be around.”
Routley gave birth to a son she named Sam. She said during her illness, her mother attempted to hold the newborn baby in her arms but because of the medical treatments would become painfully sore.
“She couldn’t lift her arms for days afterward,” Routley said.
Her mother’s illness required Routley to give up her normal life and join her mother at the hospital to help provide around the clock care.
“She was sick,” Routley said. “It (cancer) causes diarrhea. It makes the body hot. You have to apply cold packs.”
A film clip exhibited for the jury showed hospital attendants attempting to insert a tube with a needle for a biopsy on Gordon, jabbed into her back while she lay on her stomach, a painful procedure.
Routley said the treatments left her mother unrecognizable.
“She was swollen,” Routley recalled. “They pump fluids into the body to keep the organs functioning. I had to take care of my mom the nurses couldn’t do it all. I tracked her vital signs, checked her blood work, cleaned up her vomit and diarrhea. I spoon fed her.”
Gordon was moved to a nursing home where she had to learn to talk and walk with the aid of a walker. When a biopsy revealed that the cancer had come back, a third stem cell implant was required. Routley said there was some doubt that doctors would allow it, but it was granted.
“How does your mother feel today?” Wagstaff asked.
“She has struggled. She doesn’t have it (energy),” Routley said. “Shopping wears her out. This isn’t over by any stretch. She’s become a completely different person. She goes to church. Surviving and hanging out at church….that’s her life.”
On cross examination, defense attorneys for Monsanto took only a few minutes questioning Routley. She was asked if she could recall the color of the Roundup bottles she had seen her mother use. Routley responded to Wagstaff on re-direct that she had no doubt it was Roundup that her mother used.
Later in the afternoon, Dr. Charles Jameson, a Florida toxicologist, testified as an expert on the environmental causes of cancer.
Jameson said mice used as test animals in cancer research were ideal over other animals because they shared many of the same DNA characteristics with humans. In addition their short life span of two years made their test results more readily available to researchers than longer-living animals such as dogs or monkeys.