A Hawaii spokeswoman for the parent company of Monsanto Co. told the Tribune-Herald the use of Roundup herbicide isn’t the cause of the cancer suffered by three Big Island men suing the chemical giant and other corporate entities.
Attorneys for Rodney I. Sunaoka, Dudley Caravalho and Alan Z. Inaba filed suit Nov. 13 in Hilo Circuit Court against Monsanto, Solutia Inc., Pharmacia Corp. and Pfizer Inc. — entities that acquired portions of Monsanto’s former corporate structure.
Also named in the lawsuits are Phoenix V LLC, doing business as BEI Hawaii and, in Caravalho’s case only, Farm and Garden Inc., local corporations that sell or sold Roundup.
The men, who range in age from 60 to 77, claim exposure to glyphosate — a herbicide marketed by Monsanto as Roundup — and polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, manufactured and marketed by Monsanto in the U.S. until banned in 1979, caused their non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
“While we have great sympathy for the plaintiffs, we are confident that neither our glyphosate-based herbicides nor the PCBs previously manufactured by Monsanto were the cause of their illnesses,” said Monica Ivey, an Oahu spokeswoman for Bayer U.S. Crop Science, in an email. “The extensive body of science does not support a causal link between either of the products and NHL.
“Moreover, Monsanto did not manufacture the commercial products containing PCBs identified by plaintiffs and therefore was not responsible for providing warnings about any potential risks associated with them.”
In 2015, the World Health Organization’s cancer agency determined that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans” and California in 2017 declared the chemical a carcinogen.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has made a different determination, however, ruling in April 2019 that glyphosate, the most widely used herbicide in the U.S., doesn’t cause cancer when used as directed.
“The agency’s scientific findings on human health risk are consistent with the conclusions of science reviews by many other countries and other federal agencies,” EPA said in a press release at that time.
The EPA also struck down California’s plans to require a warning label on Roundup, and its ruling was affirmed by a federal appeals court in June 2020.
At least three juries nationwide have come back with verdicts that Monsanto has acted wrongfully.
Monsanto and Bayer announced in July they intend to settle Roundup cases for $10 billion. The herbicide remains on store shelves, however, and Monsanto has denied any wrongdoing.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
