Roundup Lawsuit Updates 2024: What’s Latest?

The year 2024 is going to witness a certain number of trials in the ongoing Roundup lawsuits. Roundup lawsuits focus on the carcinogenic weed killer with the deadly ingredient glyphosate causing non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

This year is expected to be a favorable one for the plaintiffs as the previous year, which put a break in the winning streak of Bayer/Monsanto.

Here we are going to peruse a few remarkable verdicts that turned the winds in the favor of plaintiffs and the current status of Roundup lawsuits, ongoing trials and expected settlements. On the whole, you are going to get all the Roundup lawsuit updates 2024, for which you are eagerly awaiting.

For more details on the evolution of Roundup litigation, read our blog on Roundup.

Recent Roundup Lawsuit Updates 2023-2024

January 2024

The new year comes with great news for the plaintiffs as John McKvision secured a massive $2.25 billion in a Roundup verdict. The jury took a favorable decision in McKvision case by awarding $250 million in compensatory damages and a $2 billion punitive damages.

Plaintiffs’ hopes are getting boosted with the recent verdicts, which favored them, despite the one recent defense verdict in the claim by Lisa Jones, Horacio Torres Bonilla and Kristoffer Yee.

Billions in punitive damages as in McKvision case is a promising change in Roundup litigation for the remaining plaintiffs that the judicial system had acknowledged the carcinogenic nature of glyphosate. This also points out the fact that Bayer might go bankrupt in settling the pending lawsuits.

April 2024

As of  April 1, 2024, there are 4,281 lawsuits pending in the MDL -2741 under judge William H. Orrick, III and Vince Chhabria.

Roundup Lawsuit Updates 2023- A Sum Up

In December 2023, a Philadelphia jury ordered Bayer to pay approximately $500,000 in damages and $3 million in punitive damages to a woman claiming Roundup caused her cancer.

In November 2023, a Missouri jury awarded $1.56 billion to four plaintiffs alleging that Roundup caused their non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

October 2023 saw a San Diego jury award a cancer patient $332 million after finding Monsanto didn’t adequately warn about Roundup’s cancer risks. In another case, a St. Louis jury awarded a plaintiff $1.25 million, finding Monsanto, the manufacturer of Roundup, did not adequately warn about the product’s risks, which allegedly led to the plaintiff’s non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Additionally, a Philadelphia jury awarded a substantial verdict of $175 million in a similar lawsuit.

Have glance at the verdicts in Roundup lawsuit updates until January 2024.

Global Impact and Trials

In Australia, a class action lawsuit filed in September 2023 is examining the link between Roundup and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Represented by Kelvin McNickle in the Federal Court of Australia, this Roundup class action lawsuit with 800 members demands reparation for plaintiffs with NHL from glyphosate exposure between July 1976 and 4 July 2022.

The lead plaintiff McNickle had been exposed to Roundup from his teens as he helped his family in vegetation business. At 35, he was diagnosed with NHL, an outcome of his 20 year exposure to glyphosate.

This judge-only trial in the federal court of Melbourne could provide a new legal perspective and may indirectly influence Roundup lawsuits in the U.S. and other countries.

Ongoing Litigation

Despite Bayer’s $11 billion offer in 2020 to settle approximately 100,000 Roundup cases, the Multidistrict Litigation (MDL) remains open with thousands of lawsuits still pending. As of January 2024, there are around 4,200 lawsuits pending in the California MDL.

The trial in Griswold case will start soon.

As per the Glyphosate Litigation Facts, the next scheduled trial is Cloud in New Castle County, Delaware, which is set to start on February 5, 2024.

Visit our page to know the Roundup lawsuit updates 2024.

Latest Research Substantiating Roundup Side Effects

A recent study published by the Environmental Health Perspectives on December 6, 2023 had linked long-term exposure to Roundup with DNA damage in men. The study included the licensed pesticide applicators in Iowa and North Carolina. They tested their blood, urine and mouth cells, which revealed a mosaic loss of chromosome Y (mLOY). It is a chromosome change identified in the blood cells of adult men (older men) and this DNA change could cause Alzhemer’s disease and blood-related cancers like leukemia, lymphoma, and myeloma.

Even men above 70 years without any history of obesity and smoking habits had a 10% of (mLOY) cell changes. The chances would increase with the risk factors like obesity and smoking.

The link between Roundup and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma first came to light with the research by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in 2015 and many studies followed that.

Several scientific studies have linked glyphosate exposure to cancer, particularly non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. This has prompted regulatory scrutiny, with agencies like the FDA and EPA being ordered by courts to reevaluate their findings on glyphosate’s carcinogenic potential. Monsanto has faced criticism for primarily funding research asserting the absence of chromosomal harm from glyphosate, while independent studies have indicated otherwise.

Followed by a whirlpool of lawsuits and research studies affirming the carcinogenic nature of glyphosate, in July 2021, Bayer announced that it would withdraw Roundup for residential use from the shelves by the beginning of 2023. However, Bayer has not yet withdrawn it from the market even in 2024.

Is glyphosate, the only culprit behind all these cancer risks?

Don’t think that glyphosate is the only harmful ingredient in Roundup. The focus has shifted to the potential carcinogenic properties of other ingredients in Roundup as well. Some studies suggest that inert ingredients in Roundup, like polyoxyethylene alkylamine (POEA) may be more toxic than glyphosate, potentially amplifying the herbicide’s effects on human cells.

Herbicide ingredient lists usually have “active ingredients” causing harm and “inert ingredients” enhancing effects. Inert ingredients, though often considered inactive, can be more toxic than active ones.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) noted that Roundup’s contents include glyphosate, organic acids, isopropylamine, surfactants (like polyethoxylated tallow amine (POE-15)), and water. In a study conducted by the NCBI, three formulations of glyphosate compounds were used to identify the toxicity of other inert ingredients in Roundup. They had identified that “POE-15 clearly appears to be the most toxic principle against human cells, even if others are not excluded.”

According to the study by the Institute of Science in Society (ISIS), “Scientists pinpoint how very low concentrations of the herbicide and other chemicals in Roundup formulations kill human cells, strengthening the case for phasing them out, and banning all further releases of Roundup-tolerant GM crops.”

In another article, ISIS claims that, glyphosate compounds are connected to infertility in men.

Research links Roundup to health issues such as birth defects, cancer, celiac disease, chronic kidney disease, diabetes, and more. WHO recognizes significant health risks from Roundup.

These updates highlight the complex and evolving nature of the Roundup litigation, indicating a shift in legal strategies and growing global attention to the potential health risks associated with glyphosate-based products.

As a positive sign, the Agriculture Department of Mexico has put forward a proposal to phase out the glyphosate use in Roundup by early 2024. It is welcomed by the members and the public. If the same legislative action is undertaken by the U.S. Federal government, it would be a welcoming step in eradicating the presence of carcinogenic glyphosate from the environment at least for the future generation.

To wrap up,

As per the results from multiple studies we have discussed here and a lot more suggest that not only glyphosate but most of the inert ingredients in Roundup are more toxic than glyphosate itself and they are not inert as claimed.

The recent changes in the Roundup litigation and verdicts are expected to influence the legislators to ban Roundup with glyphosate and the other harmful ingredients from the U.S. If it happens, these verdicts will not only revive the lives of the victims but also replenish the soil with all the lost nutrients.

Keep in touch with MedLegal360 to get the latest Roundup lawsuit news in 2024.