US: Monsanto on trial over Roundup poisoning case

Former school groundsman dying of cancer accuses maker of popular herbicide of suppressing evidence of risks.

Keen gardeners everywhere will be watching the outcome of a court case in the United States, in which a former school groundsman who is dying of cancer says the manufacturers of a well-known weed killer caused his illness.

The 46-year-old father developed skin lesions and the disease which is now slowly killing him after spraying gallons of the herbicide Roundup as a school groundskeeper for two years in California.

He accuses Monsanto of suppressing evidence of the risks of Roundup’s main ingredient – glyphosate.

Al Jazeera’s Kristen Saloomey reports.