Wife wonders whether Father-in-Law and Husband diagnosed with Cancer is associated with Monsanto’s Roundup

January 16, 2019, 7:15AM. By Jane Mundy

After her husband and father-in-law developed Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, Veronica learned of its Association with Roundup

Atlanta, GA“My husband and father-in-law were both diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin lymphoma and they both sprayed the backyard with Monsanto’s Roundup,” says Veronica. (Because studies have continually linked the herbicide to that type of cancer, it also referred to as 'Monsanto cancer'.)

“My mother-in-law had a terrible reaction to poison ivy growing in their backyard—they had a big piece of land and it was everywhere,” adds Veronica. “My father-in-law sprayed the weeds with Roundup and it worked, but it also caused him temporary blindness.” Veronica remembers getting a call from Emory University Hospital, explaining that he was OK and he would regain sight in a few days.

“Not wanting this to happen again, my mother-in-law asked my husband Bill to come over and spray. Being children of the 1950s, whatever our parents wanted done, we did,” she says, laughing. “So Bill dutifully sprayed their backyard for the next five or so years before they moved to Arizona in 1995.”

Roundup Linked to Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma

In early 2000, Veronica noticed a lump on Bill’s back. She complained to him for about a year to get it checked out but being a typical man, he ignored it. Finally he went to the VA hospital for another matter and Veronica insisted he mention the lump to his doctor. “They sent him to oncology, did a CAT Scan and found two other lumps on his back. After doing a biopsy they diagnosed him with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, removed all three tumors, and one was as big as a grapefruit,” says Veronica. Bill went to chemotherapy (he had stage 4 cancer) and within a few years the treatment not only put him in remission—the doctor declared him free of cancer. Veronica says it was a miracle. (Bill passed away a few years ago of an unrelated complication.)

“My father-in-law was also diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, but because it is a very common cancer, we didn’t at first link it to Roundup,” Veronica says. “He had the cancer in his eye and it ended up blinding him. That was too much of a coincidence, and I finally put the dots together. When Bill was diagnosed with cancer we agonized over how it could have happened and came up with all possible scenarios. He was in the air force during the Vietnam War so we thought Agent Orange. Or maybe when they used smoke to kill mosquitos. But there was only one possible explanation for my father-in-law’s cancer.”

Other Cancers Linked to Roundup

Non-Hodkin’s is not the only cancer linked to Roundup. Just last week the family of a man who died of pancreatic cancer filed a lawsuit against Monsanto, the TimesLeader.com reported. Albert Finarelli purchased and used more than 70 gallons of Roundup and other Monsanto glyphosate products per year from approximately 1994 through 2015 on his property, and used them almost daily. The lawsuit states that glyphosate is a herbicide used in a wide variety of herbicidal products around the world, and that Monsanto has represented it as safe, but also notes that a 2015 report issued by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, an agency of the World Health Organization, classified glyphosate as a probable carcinogenic to humans. Finarelli died at the age of 70 in 2015. His survivors are seeking at least $75,000 in damages, interest and costs.

The Associated Press recently reported that “Monsanto argues that numerous scientific studies and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have found glyphosate to be safe,” adding that thousands of similar lawsuits were pending across the US.

Roundup Warning

Veronica says that when she first heard about the connection between Monsanto and cancer, she thought OMG! “They sprayed the backyard a long time ago and we have no proof, except for their medical records,” she says. “It makes me wonder what is in other herbicides and I blame their cancers on the poison ivy and Roundup – now I kill weeds with vinegar. And I intend to warn everyone I know, including my Red Hat Society at lunch tomorrow, not to use Roundup.”