Lawyers for a school groundskeeper dying of cancer have asked a San Francisco jury to find that agribusiness giant Monsanto's widely used weed killer Roundup likely caused his disease.
Dewayne Johnson's lawsuit is the first case to go to trial among hundreds of lawsuits alleging Roundup caused non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
Brent Wisner, an attorney for Johnson, told jurors during his opening statement on Monday that his client sprayed large quantities of Roundup for two years at his job at a San Francisco Bay Area school district. Wisner said Johnson read the label carefully and even contacted the company after developing a rash, but was never warned it could cause cancer.
George Lombardi, an attorney for Monsanto, said there is overwhelming evidence that Roundup and similar products do not cause cancer.
Associated Press
