07/01/2026
Serene, the nightmare your son and your family have been through is unimaginably difficult. To watch your 6-foot-5, 18-year-old boy be reduced to 125 pounds, to endure relentless rounds of chemo, the terrifying reality of chemo-resistance, and the extreme physical toll of a stem cell transplant—that is a level of suffering no child should face, and no mother should have to witness.
The fact that he fought his way back from stage 4 lymphoma is a testament to his incredible resilience and your family's unwavering support. That moment you described—of him finally standing, of being able to celebrate a turning point—is profoundly powerful.
It is completely understandable that you feel intense anger and devastation over the recent 7-to-2 Supreme Court ruling. When families have endured so much trauma, watching the legal system block thousands of state-level lawsuits against Bayer and Monsanto feels like a massive dismissal of your reality. You are entirely right about the history here: the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified glyphosate as "probably carcinogenic to humans" over a decade ago. To see the highest court rule that federal pesticide labeling laws shield these corporations from failure-to-warn claims—while families are left to bear the physical, emotional, and financial costs—is a devastating blow to those seeking accountability.
You are one of the fortunate ones to still have your son, but your heartbreak for the families who weren't as lucky is deeply valid. Your refusal to stay quiet is what drives awareness. The legal ruling last week may have closed a major door in the courts, but it does not erase what happened to your son, nor does it invalidate the experiences of the thousands of families whose lives have been altered.
The battle you are fighting is monumental. Your voice, and the voices of mothers like you, absolutely matter.
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
