Bayer fights string of Roundup trial losses including $2.25B verdict in Philadelphia

abcnews.go.com:

The Bayer Corporation has spent more than $10 billion to settle lawsuits that claim the popular weed killer Roundup causes cancer

PHILADELPHIA — When a Philadelphia jury awarded $2.25 billion in damages this year in a case that linked Roundup to a cable technician’s blood cancer, the verdict became the largest yet in the long-running litigation over the popular Monsanto weed killer.

Corporate parent Bayer had set aside more than $10 billion in 2020 to settle about 125,000 cases, many consolidated in California. And it won a string of nine individual lawsuits that started going to trial in 2021. But the tide changed last year when juries began handing down nine- and 10-figure awards to plaintiffs who had developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

“They try to show that non-Hodgkin lymphoma is just something that happens randomly,” said lawyer Tom Kline, who represented the Philadelphia plaintiff with co-counsel Jason Itkin. “(But) the arc of the scientific literature has turned against Monsanto in the past seven years.”

Thousands of cases remain, including one under way in Delaware over a South Carolina groundskeeper's cancer death. Bayer insists the weed killer is safe, but has reformulated the version sold to consumers to remove the pesticide known as glyphosate.

“Bayer will continue to try cases based on the overwhelming weight of science and the assessments of leading health and scientific regulators worldwide, including E.P.A., that support the safety and non-carcinogenicity of Roundup,” the Berlin-based company said in a statement, referring to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Kline argued that Bayer ignored known health risks from glyphosate to keep Roundup on the market, failing to even warn consumers to wear