Statement: State jury orders Bayer to pay more than $2 billion to couple in Roundup cancer case

Massive award is the third to hold company responsible for illness from glyphosate

US PIRG

OAKLAND, Calif. — A state jury in Oakland decided that the use of Roundup by a California couple for residential landscaping over a 30 year period was a “substantial factor” that led to them developing non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

This decision marks the third straight time a jury has found Bayer’s glyphosate-based Roundup weed killer a cause for cancer. In this instance, the court awarded the largest amount in one of these cases to date — $18 million in compensatory and $1 billion in punitive damages to Alva Pilliod and $37 million in compensatory and $1 billion in punitive damages to wife, Alberta Pilliod.  

In response, U.S. PIRG Education Fund’s Toxics Program Director Kara Cook-Schultz released this statement:

“Hearing the details in each of these cancer trials is heartbreaking. But it is gratifying that juries are taking the risks of glyphosate seriously and are acting accordingly. We’ve known for some time that glyphosate is a probable carcinogen, according to the World Health Organization. To that end, we’ve been warning consumers that Roundup is a possible health risk and our hope now is verdicts like the one today reinforces the need for action.”