Monsanto faces 'day of reckoning'

The lawyer for a California groundskeeper dying of cancer urged jurors Tuesday to make Monsanto pay hundreds of millions of dollars for failing to warn about the health risks of weed killer Roundup.

"Today is their day of reckoning," attorney Brent Wisner told jurors as he urged them to impose a penalty of more than $400 million on Monsanto for hiding the cancer-causing potential of Roundup and commercial strength version Ranger Pro.

"Every single cancer risk found had this moment, where the science finally caught up, where they couldn't bury it anymore."

Terminally-ill Dewayne Johnson watched as his attorney accused Monsanto of putting profit over people's health by fighting research signaling Roundup's potential cancer risks and failing to issue warnings.

Johnson, 46, testified that he would "never" have used Roundup or Ranger Pro had he known it could lead to his illness.

The case is the first to reach trial alleging a cancer link from Roundup, one of the world's most widely used herbicides.

Launched in 1976, Monsanto's flagship herbicide Roundup has been approved by the US Environmental Protection Agency for decades.

In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer -- a World Health Organization body -- classified glyphosate as "probably carcinogenic," and as a result, California listed it as carcinogenic.