Do you trust all the products you bring into your home? All the various bottles and containers under our kitchen sinks, in our medicine cabinets, and on the shelves of our garden sheds should be perfectly safe if used correctly—that’s something almost all of us take for granted.
However, a recent viral video may have you recalling that famous adage, “Buyer Beware.”
On May 2, Tommy the Lawyer (@tommythelawyer), who states that he is an attorney specializing in catastrophic injury and death, posted a video to TikTok captioned, “I would never use this.” The video has since picked up 3.5 million views.
“If there’s one product in the world as a lawyer who handles catastrophic injury and death cases on a daily basis, if there’s one product in the world that I would never buy that’s still on the shelves, it’s definitely going to be Roundup,” he tells his viewers.
Roundup is an herbicide manufactured by agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation Monsanto (owned since 2018 by pharma company Bayer). According to the product information on Amazon, it kills “existing weeds and grass down to the root and prevents new weeds from growing for up to 4 months.”
“It’s been associated with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, specifically the ingredient glyphosate,” Tommy claims.
“Monsanto says that they have changed the ingredients or changed the mixture of the Roundup in some way that affects the glyphosate. I don’t know if they said they removed it completely or partially, but they say there’s a new mix or new ingredients. Yet they continue to go into courtrooms throughout the United States and argue that there’s nothing wrong with glyphosate and that [Roundup] doesn’t cause cancer,” he further claims.
He also states, “I have cases that are coming up to go to trial against them.”
According to the Lawsuit Information Center, “As of March 2024, Monsanto has reached settlement agreements in nearly 100,000 Roundup lawsuits. Monsanto paid approximately $11 billion,” and there are “54,000 Roundup Cases Left… and Counting.”
The main ingredient in Roundup is still glyphosate, according to the product’s website.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Bayer via email for more information.
Why is glyphosate still allowed?
In 2020, the Trump-era Environmental Protection Agency “found that there are no risks of concern to human health when glyphosate is used in accordance with its current label. EPA also found that glyphosate is unlikely to be a human carcinogen,” according to the Agency’s website.
However, glyphosate has been banned from use in several countries, according to Consumer Notice. It also noted, “The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, however, considers glyphosate a probable carcinogen. Research has shown potential links between high-level or prolonged glyphosate exposure and an increased risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma and other cancers.”
The website states that Bayer has “announced it would discontinue the sale of glyphosate-based herbicides for U.S. residential use sometime in 2023.”
However, “As of August 2023, Roundup products featuring glyphosate are still available online and in retail stores such as Home Depot, Lowes and Amazon continue to stock and sell products containing glyphosate.”
@tommythelawyer I would never use this #fyp #cancer #lawncare #law #lymphoma #safety #death ♬ original sound – tommythelawyer
Many of Tommy’s viewers were not surprised by his statements.
Jaimie Lorick (@jaimielorick) wrote, “I wrote a term paper on round up and the company that makes it like 10 years ago. How on earth are they still allowed to operate?”
Another person alarmingly alleged, “When I was younger I accidentally spilled round up on my socks & shoes, shortly after I had a grand mal seizure that led to more seizures & it ruined my life.”
“Yo my Papa had non-Hodgkin lymphoma and was obsessed with lawn care. I know he used round up so wonder if that did anything,” another viewer claimed.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Tommy via TikTok direct message for further comment.
The internet is chaotic—but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter here to get the best (and worst) of the internet straight into your inbox.
