Australian farmer launches legal action against Bayer over weedkiller: report

[October 10, 2019]  MELBOURNE (Reuters) - An Australian farmer has launched a legal case against Bayer AG's agricultural chemicals unit Monsanto after being diagnosed with a type of leukaemia, the Australian Broadcasting Commission reported on Thursday.

A bridge is decorated with the logo of a Bayer AG, a German pharmaceutical and chemical maker in Wuppertal, Germany August 9, 2019. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay

New South Wales farmer Ross Wild was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma last year after using the weedkiller Roundup on his farming property near the border of NSW and Victoria since 1976, ABC reported.

He claims that long-term exposure to Roundup's active ingredient, glyphosate, was to blame, ABC said.

Bayer did not have an immediate comment on the case.

He will be represented by managing partner Tony Carbone of Carbone Lawyers, according to the report. The firm did not did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment.

In June, Carbone Lawyers, acting for an Australian gardener, filed a lawsuit against Bayer for severe harm caused by a Roundup, the first such case in the country.

The lawsuit follows court rulings in the United States linking Roundup’s main ingredient, glyphosate, to cancer, which has already taken tens of billions of euros off Bayer’s market value.

For Bayer - inventor of Aspirin and maker of stroke prevention drug Xarelto and Yasmin birth control pills – lawsuits in the United States are the biggest headache with more than 13,400 plaintiffs bringing claims over the herbicide’s alleged cancer risk.

(Reporting by Melanie Burton, editing by Deepa Babington)

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