An Australian court on [January 29] heard closing arguments in a class action lawsuit alleging that a weedkiller produced by Bayer caused cancer, the first such case in Australia to reach this stage.

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The Australian lawsuit is one of relatively few outside the United States and is a test case for the country, where Roundup is widely used. It is against subsidiaries of Bayer and brings together more than 1,000 claimants.

If the judge at the Federal Court in Victoria rules in the coming months that Roundup caused lymphoma, the court will then consider whether Bayer was negligent regarding the risks its products posed and should pay damages.

The lead claimant is 41-year-old Kelvin McNickle, who says he used Roundup to spray weeds for over two decades on his family’s property and while working for a vegetation management company. He developed lymphoma aged 35.