Monsanto Sued for Excluding Non-US Citizen Plaintiff From Roundup Cancer Settlement

Diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin lymphoma, Elvira Reyes-Hernandez was allegedly denied a settlement payout by Monsanto due to her immigration status.

Monsanto Company and its corporate parent Bayer are facing a federal lawsuit for civil rights violations after they allegedly excluded a farmworker from a Roundup cancer settlement because of her immigration status.

According to the lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, plaintiff Elvira Reyes-Hernandez is a migrant farmworker who worked on Virginia tree farms between 2015 and 2018, during which she sprayed the herbicide Roundup regularly.

In 2015, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) listed glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, as “probably carcinogenic to humans.” Over the years, a wide body of scientific evidence has also pointed to glyphosate exposure as causing an increased risk of Non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Reyes-Hernandez was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2019 and subsequently sued Monsanto, claiming that Roundup exposure had a role in causing her cancer.