In Hawaii and throughout the United States, if a person is injured or becomes ill through normal use of a purchased product that is determined to be defective in some way, he or she is able to file a legal claim in a civil court against any party or parties deemed negligent in the matter. In a recent case, two former agricultural laborers have brought lawsuits against the Monsanto corporation. Both legal claims state that it was the defective products of Monsanto, which the former employees were required to use on a regular basis at work, that caused their cancer.
The product in question, which the two workers claim is a cancer-causing agent, is called “Roundup” and is typically sprayed on crops as a herbicide. Both workers have asserted that Monsanto is aware of the risks involved in using its products, but have pressured regulators to minimize the supposed dangers to humans. One of the men previously employed as a farm laborer, age 58, was diagnosed with cancer of the bone in 1995 and has asserted that he believes that his use of the weed killer was the cause of his disease.
Another former agricultural worker, a 64-year-old woman, alleges that she was made to use Roundup on a regular basis in her work at a horticultural company. Her lawsuit claims that use of the product caused her to suffer from leukemia, with which she was diagnosed in 2012. The International Agency for Research on Cancer stated, in March 2015, that some evidence suggests that an active ingredient in Roundup is carcinogenic to humans.
The agency listed the risk as a level two, out of four possible levels of concern, for probable cancer-causing agents. An attorney representing the 58-year-old man in court stated that she believes there will hundreds of similar cases brought to court in the future. Any person in Hawaii who has used what he or she believes to be defective products, and has suffered injury or illness because of it, can contact a product liability lawyer in the area for consultation if he or she wishes to consider filing a legal claim in court.
Source: rt.com, “US workers sue Monsanto over ‘cancer-causing’ weed-killer“, Sept. 30, 2015