Los Angeles (AFP)

A Los Angeles court began on Monday into a lawsuit against Monsanto firm of a mother whose young child developed a rare and severe form of cancer after being exposed to her Roundup weedkiller.

Ezra Clark was only 4 years old in February 2016 when he was diagnosed with Burkitt's lymphoma, a particularly aggressive leukemia that can spread lightningly to different organs.

According to the civil lawsuit filed on his behalf by his mother Destiny Clark, the child was "directly exposed", on numerous occasions, to Roundup when the latter sprayed the herbicide manufactured by Monsanto on her property.

And the document, viewed by AFP, says the complainant's experts "concluded, with reasonable medical certainty, that Ezra's exposure to Roundup was a significant factor" in the onset of this cancer. .

The plaintiff's lawyers accuse Monsanto of having known "for decades" the link between glyphosate, the main active ingredient in Roundup and other herbicides, and the development of cancer.

They also blame the American agrochemical firm, now a subsidiary of the German giant Bayer, for having taken into account in these tests only glyphosate, without examining the carcinogenic impact of the final product, a mixture of this ingredient with numerous other substances.

"If the complainant had known the risks associated with the use of Roundup at the time (...) She would not have used it", they plead, asking for damages in an unspecified amount.

Bayer continues to defend the safety of its product.

Since the acquisition of Monsanto in 2018, Bayer has faced a roundup of proceedings in the United States related to Roundup.

So much so that the German group announced this summer that it would record an additional provision of a gross amount of 4.5 billion dollars to deal with the potential consequences of lawsuits related to glyphosate in US courts.

Bayer signed a broad agreement of more than $ 10 billion in 2020 to end some 125,000 complaints.

But a US judge last May rejected part of that plan, which would have limited the cost of future class action claims.

Logo of pharmaceutical giant Bayer at the group's headquarters in Berlin, March 20, 2019 Odd ANDERSEN AFP / Archives

According to the judge, the deal did not sufficiently protect the interests of people who used Roundup before February 2021 and have not yet been diagnosed with non-Cand lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system.

Roundup is classified as "probable carcinogen" by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), an offshoot of the WHO.

Bayer for its part refutes this characterization.

© 2021 AFP