Supreme Court mulls restrictions to herbicide lawsuits

April 27 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Monday over whether herbicide companies such as as Monsanto can be sued for causing health effects like cancer.

Roundup, the most popular herbicide on the market, is at the center of the case with research indicating exposure to the weed killer could cause cancer. Monsanto, owned by Bayer, denies the link between the glyphosate-based product and cancer.

There have been more than 100,000 lawsuits filed in the United States against Monsanto over the health effects related to the weed killer. Bayer says it has spent about $11 billion on settlements.

Bayer is looking to the Supreme Court to determine whether it can be sued for the alleged health effects.

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In 2019, John Durnell sued Monsanto in Missouri state court, alleging that exposure to Roundup caused his non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Darnell argued that Monsanto failed to warn of the potential health effects related to exposure to Roundup.

"Monsanto has known for decades that its popular weed killer, Roundup, can cause cancer," said Ashley Keller, Durnell's attorney. "But the company has refused to make its product safer or to inform consumers that they should exercise caution when using it. Instead, Monsanto has marketed Roundup as safe to spray in a T-shirt and shorts."

The case before the Supreme Court is Bayer's appeal of that verdict, which awarded Durnell $1.25 million last year.

Monsanto argues that states cannot impose labeling requirements that are different from those required by the Environmental Protection Agency, citing the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act.

The Environmental Protection Agency has said for decades that glyphosate is not carcinogenic to humans.

"To remove glyphosate from the market would pose an immediate, devastating risk to America's food supply," the American Farm Bureau Federation wrote in a brief to the court. "Farmers depend on this safe herbicide to support high-yield food and fiber production, season after season. Glyphosate is used on roughly 300 million acres of U.S. farmland."