Many people will develop cancer for one reason or another during their lifetime, but 46-year-old Dewayne Johnson blames one product in particular for his cancer diagnosis – Roundup. Johnson isn’t just fighting for his life; he’s also fighting for justice in a case against the weed killer that he says gave him terminal cancer (1).

Dewayne’s Roundup Exposure & Cancer Diagnosis

Dewayne Johnson is a father-of-two that worked as a groundskeeper in a Benicia, California school district and regularly sprayed hundreds of gallons of Roundup to control the grass and weeds (1). In August of 2014, Johnson was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a type of cancer that starts in the white blood cells (1). The cancer has since spread and doctors don’t think he’ll survive beyond six months (1).

Johnson, who now has lesions covering as much as 80% of his body, is suing the U.S. agrochemical corporation Monsanto and claiming its herbicide Roundup caused his illness (2,3). The company is denying that its product causes cancer but Johnson is adamant that there is a carcinogenic ingredient in Roundup and that Monsanto didn’t do their part to warn consumers (1).

Are Roundup And Cancer Two Peas in a Pod?

The main ingredient in Roundup is a chemical called glyphosate, which is marketed as either an amber-colored liquid with no smell or a salt (1). Monsanto introduced the chemical as an effective weed killer in 1974 (1). By 2015, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer deemed glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans� (2).

Johnson isn’t the first cancer patient to claim that Roundup causes cancer, more than 800 patients have sued Monsanto over claims that Roundup gave them cancer (2). Their lawsuits are currently proceeding through the US court system (3). Johnson is, however, the first of these patients to see his case go to trial (2). Johnson’s lawyer explained that, “His case has been expedited because he currently has only a few months to live� (3).

The Enormity of Dewayne’s Lawsuit

The stakes of this trial are enormous and Monsanto could face massive losses if it has to pay out damages over the product (3). If Monsanto wins, the hundreds of other cases could be thrown out (1). Linda Wells, an organizing director for Pesticide Action Network North America explained the gravity of the situation, stating, “If Johnson is successful at trial, it will be a huge shakeup for the entire pesticide industry.� (3).

One company that has dealt with the effects of these types of lawsuits in the past is Johnson & Johnson. Last year thousands of women in the U.S. sued the company over the talcum particles in its baby powder, claiming it caused them to develop ovarian cancer (4). Johnson & Johnson had to pay out hundreds of millions of dollars and its reputation was tainted by the lawsuits (4). Monsanto could be headed down a similar path if Johnson wins his lawsuit.

Even though the outcome of the trial is still unknown one thing is for sure, Dewayne Johnson doesn’t have a lot of time left. Hopefully, justice can be served before it’s too late and the association between roundup and cancer can be determined once and for all. Read this next to learn about how you can protect yourself against Monsanto’s cancer-causing Roundup.

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