If you were watching television in almost any U.S. market in March and April, you probably saw advertisements soliciting would-be plaintiffs who were exposed to the crop-protection tool paraquat and later developed Parkinson’s disease. Nearly 15,000 commercials ran in April to the tune of $1.9 million. The lawsuits aimed at paraquat aren’t new — they started back in 2017 — but the media blitz was the highest ever in March and April of 2022. Though the 2021 campaign was nothing to sneeze at.

Unfortunately, mass tort litigation is a big business. As any lawyer, myself included, will tell you that litigation is expensive, even when you have a good case. These large-scale cases require more capital, sometimes attracting third-party investors, like hedge funds. In other words, there are literally financiers, with no connection to the case, who profit when plaintiffs recover big judgments.

These mass tort firms now have a recipe for success: Invent questionable scientific evidence, find a sympathetic plaintiff, sue the manufacturer, and payday. This isn’t about justice or paying for someone’s cancer treatments — this is about big money. For farmers, that’s a scary prospect. Roundup, paraquat, and other pesticides are important crop-protection tools. How many multi-million-dollar lawsuits can the manufacturers withstand before they decide it isn’t worth it?

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