Dewayne Johnson, 46, from the US, was awarded $289million (£226million) after a jury found that Monsanto – the makers of Roundup – did not “adequately warn” of the risks of using the product.
The jury found that Monsanto officials acted with “malice and oppression” in their selling of the product despite its risks being known and said it was a “substantial factor” in Mr Johnson’s illness.
Mr Johnson’s lawyers said the groundsman was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2014, after using large amounts of Roundup and another Monsanto product, Ranger Pro, when working in the San Francisco Bay Area school district.
Monsanto vice president Scott Partridge insisted that the product – which contains the widely used herbicide glyphosate – is safe to use.
He said: “Roundup has been safe for four decades and will continue to be safe. There is no credible scientific evidence that demonstrates otherwise.
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“It is completely and totally safe and the public should not be concerned about this verdict, it is one that we will work through the legal process to see if we can get the right result. The science is crystal clear.”
Of the verdict, Mr Partridge said: “The jury made a decision, but the decision that a jury or a judge makes has to be based on the weight of the evidence and the overwhelming weight of the evidence that went in the trial was that science demonstrates glyphosate is safe, there’s no credible evidence to the contrary.
“I understand that we all have sympathy for Mr Johnson, certainly the jury had sympathy for Mr Johnson, but that should not change the manner in which legal decisions are made. They should be made on the weight of the evidence.”
In 2016, a joint report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the UN said that, while there was “some evidence of a positive association between glyphosate exposure and risk of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma” in some studies, the only large study of high quality found “no evidence of an association at any exposure level”.
It concluded that glyphosate “is unlikely to pose a carcinogenic risk to humans from exposure through the diet”.
But in 2015 France-based International Agency for Research on Cancer, which is part of the WHO, said that glyphosate was a “probable human carcinogen”.
Last year the EU extended the licence for use of glyphosate for five years.
A Government spokesperson said: “The Government’s priority is the protection of people and the environment. Decisions on the use of pesticides should be based on a careful scientific assessment of the risks.
“Once outside the EU, we will continue to make decisions on pesticides based on the best available science.”