German pharmaceutical company Bayer loses "glyphosate" lawsuit in the US

German pharmaceutical and chemical company Bayer has lost a lawsuit in the US over the controversial herbicide glyphosate.

In the US, plaintiff John Durnell had filed a lawsuit against the German company in a court in St. Louis, Missouri, alleging that the glyphosate substance found in the weed killer Roundup caused him to develop cancer.

On Friday, a jury in the court decided that Bayer must pay 1 million 250 thousand dollars to John Durnell. Durnell's attorney, Wylie Blair, stated that this was the first case to prove that chemicals other than the main ingredient glyphosate could also cause cancer.

In a statement released by Bayer, it was announced that the company would appeal the decision to a higher court.

Following its 63 billion dollar acquisition of the US agricultural company Monsanto in 2018, Bayer had been ordered to pay billions of dollars in fines and compensation in lawsuits filed by those claiming that the glyphosate-containing agricultural product Roundup, developed by that company, was a significant factor in triggering cancer.

While Bayer denies the allegations regarding glyphosate, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified glyphosate as carcinogenic in 2015.

In 2020, Bayer announced that it had reached a settlement in the lawsuits filed against it in the US and would pay 10.9 billion dollars to the plaintiffs. Despite the settlement, the company still faces approximately 40 thousand lawsuits related to Roundup.