Syngenta Has Many Options To Insulate Themselves From Paraquat Parkinson's Disease Lawsuits

More than 1300 people with Parkinson's disease have filed lawsuits accusing paraquat of causing their disease

Monday, July 11, 2022 - The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), last summer, approved paraquat to be sold in the United States for the next 15-years before it will review its decision. The agency also told consumers that they were unable to find a connection between using Paraquat as directed and developing Parkinson's disease as hundreds of farmers and farmworkers claim. Environmental and human health advocacy groups like the Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) and the Environment Working Group (EWG) have been screaming for years to have the EPA ban paraquat because it is a proven human killer and suspected of causing Parkinson's disease, a deadly neurological condition. Just recently five more lawsuits have been filed against Syngenta and Chevron, the makers of paraquat, for refusing to warn consumers of the risks of developing Parkinson's disease. Studies on laboratory rats have found that inhaling repeated low doses of paraquat can cause male animals to lose their sense of smell. This is due to the agricultural herbicide destroying certain brain cells that are necessary to produce dopamine to communicate with one another. Pinella-legalexaminer.com wrote, "Several studies have found that people who have been regularly exposed to the weedkiller by spraying, mixing, transporting or handling it, may be at greater risk for developing the devastating degenerative disease." Pinellas reports that about 1300 paraquat Parkinson's disease lawsuits from around the country have been consolidated in multidistrict litigation (MDL) and now are in the final stages of interviewing scientific expert witnesses from both sides. Several bellwether cases have been selected to go to trial in early 2023. Bellwether cases are useful to ascertain the reaction juries have to the scientific expert's evidence that there is a connection between using paraquat and developing Parkinson's.

The hope is that once the companies see what they are up against they will offer a quick and generous settlement and also discontinue selling paraquat in the United States. More than 30 countries including China, the EU, and Switzerland, to name a few, have stopped using the deadly defoliant on their soil. China and Switzerland, however, continue to manufacture paraquat and export it to places like the US. Farmers, farmworkers, and those who live in areas surrounding farms that spray paraquat should consider speaking with a paraquat Parkinson's disease attorney to see if they qualify to file a lawsuit for lump-sum monetary damages. One way the paraquat Parkinson's disease lawsuits could go would be that Syngenta could follow the lead of Johnson & Johnson and spin off their paraquat production business into a separate company and declare it bankrupt. The Texas-Two Step is a financial maneuver that enables a multinational company to shelter a parent company from thousands of lawsuits and billions of dollars in potential punitive damage awards. Another way may be to be forced to provide plaintiffs with a generous settlement like that which Bayer recently coughed up, somewhere above $12 billion to 125,000 plaintiffs suffering from cancer, rather than risk all in individual jury trials. Bayer is the parent company of Monsanto, the makers of Roundup weedkiller, thought to cause non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and other cancers to those who apply it on the farm, in public parks, and at home lawns and gardens.

Lawyers for Paraquat Lawsuits

Attorneys handling Paraquat Lawsuits for leukemia, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and multiple myeloma offer free, no-obligation case review for individuals and families who believe they may have grounds to file a paraquat Parkinson's lawsuit. Working on a contingency basis, these attorneys are committed to never charging legal fees unless they win compensation in your paraquat Parkinson's lawsuit. The product liability litigators handling Roundup claims at the Onder Law Firm have a strong track record of success in representing families harmed by dangerous drugs and consumer products.