PHOTO: Pennsylvania Groundskeeper John McKivison, 49, will receive $2.25 BILLION in damages after Roundup weedkiller ’caused his rare blood cancer’

After decades of working in blue-collar jobs, John McKivison’s life has changed dramatically over the past four years.

The 49-year-old was diagnosed with a rare blood cancer during the first year of Covid – and now he’s about to receive the largest settlement in US history.

A Philadelphia court ruled last week that his illness was caused by a decade of use of Roundup weedkiller while he worked as a groundskeeper for a logistics company in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, where he lives.

The jury ruled that German consumer goods giant Bayer must pay $2.25 to $250 million in compensation to McKivison and $2 billion in damages.

Bayer has promised to appeal the verdict, which would protect the company from paying that money. If the payout were to go through, it would be the largest in this type of lawsuit.

About 40,000 Americans have filed lawsuits against the companies, most claiming the weedkiller caused their cancer, but only four cases have gone to trial.

Legal experts say McKivison is unlikely to get the money.

Over the years, Bayer has paid out more than $10 billion in settlements to cancer patients and their estates who sued over the weedkiller’s link to cancer and accused the company of failing to warn customers about the risk.

Four cancer patients came to court Dewayne Johnson, Edwin Hardeman and Alva and Alberta Pilliod – and were collectively awarded $132 million after juries sided with them.

The original payouts worth billions of dollars determined by juries were ultimately reduced after judges found the amounts excessive.

Bayer has vowed to appeal judgments that force the company to pay millions to sick consumers — meaning the winners of the lawsuits may not see financial restitution for years, if ever.

The ruling in Mr McKivison’s favor marked one of the largest payouts in a consumer damages lawsuit.

They agreed that Bayer and Monsanto – the product’s co-makers – were negligent in their safety assessments of ingredients in Roundup, and failed to warn consumers of the risks of using it.

Court documents seen exclusively by DailyMail.com show that Mr McKivison was exposed while working as a gardener in a warehouse for a local paper mill near his home in Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania.

There he was tasked with loading and unloading paper boxes and was also the company’s groundskeeper.

Mr. McKivison stated in his statement that he often wore short-sleeved shirts while spraying the area with a concentrated version of Roundup.

He also did not consistently wear a mask or gloves because he did not know such protective equipment was necessary.

He wore gloves “mainly to keep myself clean. Working around the tractor releases a lot of grease, things like that.”

He started feeling unwell in 2015 and was hospitalized for three days. Doctors had not found cancer at the time, but diagnosed them with dizziness before sending them home.

It wasn’t until the summer of 2020 that doctors tested him for cancer.

In July of that year, they performed a bone marrow biopsy, a procedure in which doctors insert a thin needle into the bone and suck out a small core of bone marrow – where blood cells are made.

The sample is then examined under a microscope to analyze the health of the blood cells.

The following month, doctors confirmed that Mr. McKivison had a rare form of blood cancer called marginal zone lymphoma, which sickens about 1,000 to 2,300 Americans each year.

The disease is caused by the abnormal growth of B lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell.

Marginal zone lymphomas tend to grow slowly but respond well to treatments such as chemotherapy and antibody infusions.

Survival rates are high: according to data, between 77 and 88 percent of patients are still alive after five years.

Mr. McKivison’s health status is unknown.

Two key ingredients in Roundup, glyphosate and polyethoxylated tallow amine (POEA), work together to make the product carcinogenic. Scientists have known it since at least 1991 that pesticides containing glyphosate and other chemicals are more harmful than glyphosate alone.

Later studies, incl one from 2004found that Roundup caused two telltale signs of tumor growth, including cells developing abnormally.

POEA increases the time the chemicals in Roundup stay on the skin.

The skin becomes irritated, making it easier for toxins to pass through the blood vessel walls.

It is thought that from there the chemicals can seep into the bone and infiltrate the bone marrow, affecting blood cell production.

Whether glyphosate is truly carcinogenic is up for debate. The World Health Organization’s cancer agency published a report in 2015 classifying the ingredient as a possible carcinogen.

The United States Environmental Protection Agencymeanwhile, it maintained ‘there are no risks of concern to human health’ and that glyphosate is ‘unlikely to be carcinogenic to humans’.

POEA is known to be toxic to freshwater fish and according to toxicologist expert Dr. William Sawyer who testified in the case, it is 40 times more toxic than glyphosate.

Roundup also contains formaldehyde and ethylene oxide, both known carcinogens.

The judgment found that Monsanto was negligent in its duty to ensure that the products it produced, marketed, advertised and distributed were certain to be safe, and further failed to warn customers of the various risks.

The jury found that the company’s failures resulted in Mr McKivison’s cancer, which could have been prevented if he had been properly warned.

The sky-high amount that could be awarded to Mr. McKivison represents a major settlement for Bayer and Monsanto.

Mr. McKivison’s lawyers note in court papers that the case marks “50 years of neglect” and indicates that the companies must undergo top-to-bottom workforce changes to finally fix longstanding safety and product testing problems unload.

The appeals process can take several months or more than a year, which means it could take at least a year – or more Mr McKivison will see a penny should the appeal fail.

The case was heard by the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, which is the legal system of the state.

The institution has been accused of overwhelmingly favoring plaintiffs alleging wrongdoing by major corporations, which has led to huge payouts to people like Mr. McKivison.

For example, in December 2022, the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas awarded a mesothelioma plaintiff who claimed exposure to asbestos in gaskets and packaging materials $25 million in damages.

The court is also called a by some ‘judicial hellhole’ and a “hotbed for class action lawsuits from out-of-state plaintiffs.”

This is just one of many legal condemnations Bayer has received over allegations that its product caused cancer in its users.

In 2019, the San Francisco Court of Appeals upheld a 2019 decision awarding a massive $86 million to Alva and Alberta Pilliod of Livermore, who sued Bayer claiming they had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma as a direct result of 30 years of use of the glyphosate-based product. lawn treatment.

And in 2018, terminally ill Dewayne Johnson, then 46 years old, won $289 million in a landmark verdict after a jury found that the weedkiller Roundup played a major role in the development of his lymphoma.

That amount was later reduced to approximately $78 million after the trial.