A Georgia jury just ordered Monsanto to pay $2.1 billion to a single man who developed cancer after using their weed killer.
John Barnes isn't the first — approximately 170,000 Roundup claims have been filed against the company.
Barnes used Roundup at his Georgia home for two decades, regularly purchasing the glyphosate-based herbicide at Home Depot stores from 1999 to 2019.
He developed non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
What Monsanto Knew
The company didn't warn consumers.
A landmark 2000 research paper claimed glyphosate posed no health risks to humans — but was later revealed to be ghostwritten by Monsanto employees using unpublished internal data while ignoring studies showing carcinogenic effects.
The First Victim
Dewayne Johnson was a school groundskeeper in Northern California.
He mixed and sprayed hundreds of gallons of Roundup as part of his job duties, sometimes getting drenched in the herbicide.
Johnson was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2014 at age 42 and was near death when he sued Monsanto.
The Legal Avalanche
Thousands of people who used Roundup developed non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and other cancers.
State court trials revealed Monsanto — now owned by Bayer — knew about cancer risks for years and failed to warn users.
Internal emails showed coordination between Monsanto and EPA official Jess Rowland, who was leading the agency's assessment of glyphosate's cancer risk but worked with the company to suppress independent safety reviews.
Nearly 100,000 cases have been resolved for over $11 billion in settlements, with the company setting aside $16 billion total to handle claims.
Roundup remains on store shelves across America.