Loading "As such, Roundup products are dangerous to human health and unfit to be marketed and sold in commerce, particularly without proper warnings and directions," the writ by Carbone Lawyers claims. Mr Ogalirolo was told by doctors in February 2018 that his cancer was in remission, but he says his life remains on hold. "I don't know what's around the next corner. I live for my four children and my grandkids and it's the uncertainty that is the hardest part. The doctors have admitted they don't know what happens next," he told The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. Mr Ogalirolo operated a Jim's Mowing franchise for several years before running his own landscaping business until 2015, when he was forced to retire because of poor health.

He claims to have used Roundup about three times a week for 18 years. Tony Carbone, managing partner of Carbone Lawyers, said anyone using Roundup on a regular basis could be affected. Legal action has been launched in Australia over claims popular weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Credit:AP "It is clear the manufacturer of Roundup knew the product was a risk to people's health and clearly failed to display safety warnings on their product. This case has the potential to be substantially bigger than previous asbestos litigation," Mr Carbone said. The lawsuit filed on Monday in the Supreme Court coincides with a Victorian government review into the safety of glyphosate. Several councils across Melbourne and Sydney are also considering a ban on Roundup and other products that include the chemical.

"Based on recent developments in the United States, Victoria's Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning is reviewing the use of glyphosates, including Roundup, across its public land management function as a matter of precaution," a government spokesman said last week. An Australian-based spokesman for Bayer said the company was not in possession of the writ and could not comment. However, a recent statement on Monsanto's website denied glyphosate had harmful side-effects. "Glyphosate has a 40-year history of safe and effective use. In evaluations spanning those four decades, the overwhelming conclusion of experts worldwide, including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has been that glyphosate can be used safely," the statement says. Mr Ogalirolo's civil claim follows a string of successful lawsuits against Monsanto in the US, where juries have been willing to accept that the weed killer is directly responsible for causing cancer.

Loading The release of internal corporate communications during the US trials have also uncovered attempts by Monsanto to influence scientific papers and interfere with research that raised concerns about the safety of its products. In a landmark decision last year, a California jury awarded US$289 million (A$415 million) to a former groundskeeper after finding that Roundup caused his cancer and Monsanto had failed to disclose the serious health risks associated with its use. A separate lawsuit in US federal court saw US$80 million (A$115 million) awarded to a residential user of the herbicide in early 2019. Last month, a California couple was awarded US$2 billion (A$2.8 billion) after a jury found their non-Hodgkin lymphoma was caused by decades of exposure to Roundup.

The first Australian lawsuit will have to persuade a judge that glyphosate is responsible for causing cancer and Monsanto should be held liable. But despite the successive US court victories, Australian regulators have not accepted that such connections exist. “The Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority considered the evidence presented in the [groundskeeper] case and found no grounds to take regulatory action in Australia,” the regulator announced in October 2018, following publicity about the ground-breaking decision in the US. “There is a lot of information out there, and discussion in the media does not always get the facts or the science right.” The regulator had already considered and rejected a 2015 finding by the World Health Organisation that glyphosate was “probably carcinogenic to humans”.