Monsanto is a huge diversified multinational company, originally established in the United States.
It is now the world leader in plant biotechnology. Its main activity is the creation and cultivation of genetically modified corn, soybeans, cotton, as well as various preparations against insect pests and weeds.
Evil rumors have circulated around Monsanto since the Vietnam War, when her infamous Agent Orange herbicide, which still causes genetic mutations and cancers in Vietnamese people, was sprayed over the jungle.
They intensified after 1996, when the company launched the first GMO agricultural crops on the market.
Since then, conspiracy theories have sprung up like mushrooms around Monsanto. The company's GMO products are accused of causing allergies and new unusual diseases in people, including the mysterious Morgellon disease.
In the 2000s, a series of experiments on mice showed that the popular Roundup herbicide (glyphosate) marketed by Monsanto around the world caused cancer in animals. After that, there were fears that it also affects people in the same way, but the company denied any harm to Roundup.
And just recently it became known that the first official risk was filed against Monsanto, with the accusation that Roundup caused cancer in a person in a short time. According to The Guardian, the victim, 46-year-old Dewayne Johnson, previously worked as a school gardener in northern California and actively used Monsanto herbicide to spray plants.
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Since 2012, Johnson has worked with Roundup for two hours almost every day, spraying weeds. At the same time, he wore protective clothing, as recommended, but particles of the substance still got on his face - “it was inevitable, no matter how hard you try. And when his watering hose broke a couple of times, he poured herbicide on his hands.
In 2014, Johnson began to feel unwell, his previously clear skin began to become covered with a painful rash. He went to the hospital and there he was diagnosed with blood cancer. Johnson believes the herbicide is the culprit. Now the disease is spreading despite chemotherapy, and Johnson is getting more and more wounds on his skin.
"I went through a lot of pain, but I'm not getting better," Johnson said, speaking the other day in a San Francisco court. "This disease really takes everything out of you."
Johnson's lawyers produced numerous documents proving that the company had been repeatedly warned about the great harm of their herbicides to human health, but Monsanto ignored everything. Internal emails of company employees were also presented.
The Johnson case, if it turns out to be a winning one, may be only the first sign. According to the article, hundreds of victims who have lost their loved ones from cancer or who themselves survived after undergoing cancer treatment are sitting at the ready with claims against the company. Each of them blames the Roundup herbicide for their troubles.
Meanwhile, Roundup is freely sold in 130 countries around the world and approved for use on over 100 plants. Monsanto continues to claim that it is harmless, even though glyphosate was classified as “likely carcinogenic to humans” in 2015 by the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).