07/01/2026
The picture on the left was my son after more than a gallon of glyphosate was tipped over his neck and shoulders during a work accident. This is why I won't stay quiet. My healthy, 6 ft 5, 18 year old son was taken down to 125 pounds after glyphosate seeped into his pores.
That picture? He'd turned a corner then. We all felt like he just might make it. We were celebrating. He could stand. He could get out of his hospital bed. He didn't want a picture taken at his worst - with no hair from rounds and rounds of chemo, looking more shrunken, bigger tumors. A few months before this left picture, he was at death's door, stage 4 lymphoma and the doctors didn't give us much hope he would live.
I'm one of the fortunate mothers. My son battled like a warrior. He survived and the right picture is him now. But there was a brutal seven year battle with all the alternative methods, all the chemo... so much that he became chemo resistant. Then when nothing else would stop the tumors from growing back, a stem cell transplant that wiped out his whole immune system in the hope it would restart. Many mothers.... many families are not so fortunate. They lost their loved one.
Last week the Supreme Court voted 7 to 2 that glyphosate didn't need a cancer warning. Monsanto won. Bayer won. Two of the largest companies in the world won against thousands of families. My son, our entire family and thousands of others families who have had glyphosate impact their lives felt this blow in our guts.
Eleven years ago the WHO announced it "probably causes cancer." We want the "probably" word gone. We want this monster named for who it is and what it does.
We lost the fight last week. But the battle will keep going. Mothers like me won't stop. Because we know.
-Serene
