Glyphosate: US Supreme Court ruling could block lawsuits alleging pesticide causes cancer

The US Supreme Court is deliberating over a case that will determine the fate of tens of thousands of lawsuits alleging that the weedkiller glyphosate causes cancer.1Justices heard arguments on 27 April over whether federal law can shield the US agrochemical company Monsanto from being sued at the state level for failing to warn about the alleged risks of its pesticide.Glyphosate has become one of the largest sources of product liability litigation in US history.Monsanto’s parent company, the German pharmaceutical giant Bayer, has faced more than 100 000 lawsuits in US courts over glyphosate and has paid more than $11bn (£8.1bn; €9.4bn) in settlements.2Monsanto Company versus Durnell is one of the cases, and it is this that has now reached the Supreme Court.3John Durnell, a retired man from St Louis, sued Monsanto in Missouri in 2019, claiming that his long term use of Roundup (the brand name for glyphosate) caused…