The Missouri Supreme Court has upheld a US$611 million verdict against Bayer’s Roundup weedkiller, reinforcing juries’ findings that glyphosate exposure can cause cancer.
The case centred on the company’s failure to warn consumers, a right New Zealanders still lack as Roundup products continue to be sold here with no cancer warnings or safety notices, say campaign group NoMoreGlyphosate.nz.
The U.S. ruling, one of the largest upheld against Bayer, involved three plaintiffs who successfully argued that years of Roundup use contributed to their non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. While U.S. courts are increasingly holding Bayer accountable, New Zealand consumers face store shelves stocked with Roundup — yet without any health warnings, handouts, or point-of-sale notices.
“If cigarettes, alcohol, and even energy drinks carry mandatory health warnings, why should Roundup — a product repeatedly linked to cancer in courtrooms overseas — be treated differently in New Zealand?”
“The issue is not whether Roundup is banned tomorrow, but whether New Zealanders are given the same right to be warned as consumers elsewhere. At present, families, home gardeners, and school groundskeepers are left exposed without the ability to make an informed choice.
Real Lives, Real Risks
“The lack of warnings isn’t just a regulatory gap — it affects real people. One New Zealand family recently shared how their son, hired to spray gorse on a dairy farm, was given no protective equipment. When he requested safety gear, the farm owner refused. Faced with protecting his health and his young family, he quit. His wife was eight months pregnant at the time.
“Stories like this underline why warning labels matter. Without them, families are left to guess the risks only after it’s too late.”
A Simple Fix
Consumer protections that are standard for tobacco, alcohol, and pharmaceuticals could be applied immediately to glyphosate products:
- Clear health warnings on packaging
- Point-of-sale notices in hardware stores
- Safety handouts with each purchase
- Public awareness campaigns, particularly where glyphosate is used in schools and communities.
In everyone and everything
Wheat is sometimes sprayed in pre harvest desiccation
Not used to mature the wheat early which is a popular misconception
TV3 Documentary “Let Us Spray” — Censored from New Zealand Television
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HZOkp2jDwg
Scientists Anthony Samsel and Stephanie Seneff “Glyphosate pathways to modern diseases V”
http://whale.to/v/vaccineglyphosate_link_exposed.html
Glyphosate is used to spray mature wheat is USA where Gene Manipulated Wheat has two nuclei to survive it. It’s a stupid practise resulting in biscuits snd bread thst make you sick. We are stupid too for grazing stock on desiccated poison pasture. They are trying to bring G.E. and G.M.O. in here in N.Z. The result will be un-Kiwi ‘pigtucker’ ‘food’.
Thank you for publicising this.
I wonder how many workers spraying roundup for weed control have passed away from agressive lymphoma prematurely in this country.
New Zealand is the true wild West when it comes to consumer safety. Even oft maligned nations like China and Russia, have stricter conditions on labelling, for a variety of things.
We, the taxpayers are probably paying some grifter millions to spray this