This story was initially revealed by Civil Eats.
April 28, 2025 Replace: North Dakota’s governor signed the primary invoice defending pesticide firms from legal responsibility into legislation final week. In Georgia, the invoice remains to be with the governor.
On March 21, a jury in a Georgia courtroom awarded John Barnes $2.1 billion in damages, affirming his declare that utilizing Roundup induced his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and that the corporate that made the product ought to have warned him of the chance.
It was considered one of about 177,000 lawsuits to this point filed towards Bayer, which acquired Monsanto, the maker of the world’s most generally used weedkiller, in 2018. The corporate has put aside $16 billion to deal with the litigation, and this case appeared like one other main loss.
Quite the opposite, it could be the final Roundup litigation case within the state.
The week prior, Georgia’s state lawmakers handed a invoice that will defend pesticide producers from the identical type of authorized legal responsibility sooner or later. It’s now awaiting Republican Governor Brian Kemp’s signature.
If the invoice turns into legislation, it would mark a turning level in Bayer’s lengthy search to seek out the precise technique to beat again the lawsuits claiming that Roundup causes most cancers. Bayer maintains that Roundup and its lively ingredient, glyphosate, are protected when used as directed, and the U.S. Environmental Safety Company (EPA) has repeatedly discovered it’s not prone to trigger most cancers.
Worldwide well being businesses and a number of juries, offered with scientific analysis and paperwork that present Monsanto labored to cover proof of hurt, have reached totally different conclusions, affirming its connection to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Along with many different approaches to mitigate the price of litigation, the agrichemical large first started writing and lobbying for the passage of “pesticide immunity” legal guidelines in a handful of states final 12 months.
The legal guidelines get rid of people’ means to deliver “failure-to-warn” claims, which most Roundup litigation has been based mostly on to this point. Primarily, these legal guidelines declare that if the EPA has accepted a chemical as protected, firms can’t be held responsible for failing to warn customers of dangers. Opponents level out that the EPA’s approvals don’t at all times sustain with rising dangers. Chlorpyrifos and atrazine, for instance, have remained in use with EPA approval regardless of recognized dangers.
Final 12 months, Bayer lobbied lawmakers in Iowa, Idaho, and Missouri to push immunity payments, however the payments didn’t cross. The corporate then ramped up its marketing campaign heading into 2025. It created the Trendy Ag Alliance to advertise farmer assist for the payments and commenced a cross-country advert blitz. For the reason that starting of this 12 months, lawmakers have launched comparable immunity payments in a few dozen states. Payments have been defeated in Montana, Mississippi, and Wyoming and are nonetheless pending in Idaho, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Missouri, Florida, Tennessee, and Iowa.
“Individuals who know concerning the invoice are against the invoice and actually don’t need their rights curtailed. We don’t must have the Iowa legislature making this choice on behalf of Bayer,” mentioned Jennifer Breon, an organizer at advocacy group Meals & Water Watch who has been coordinating opposition to the Iowa invoice. “In the event that they really feel that their most cancers or no matter sickness has been induced through the use of a pesticide, individuals ought to have an opportunity to make that case in courtroom.”
Whereas motion continues within the states, Bayer is actively supporting two present pathways to federal legislation adjustments that would obtain an identical end result: The primary is a petition submitted by the attorneys normal of 11 Republican-led states asking the EPA to provoke a rulemaking course of that will additional affirm the EPA’s authority on pesticide labeling. The second, a bit of laws known as the Agricultural Labeling Uniformity Act, may very well be connected to a future farm invoice.
There’s additionally a wild-card issue within the combine: Whereas Republicans have largely supported Bayer’s efforts up to now, Secretary of Well being and Human Companies Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was one of many attorneys who received the primary verdict towards Monsanto (now Bayer) based mostly on claims Roundup induced Dewayne “Lee” Johnson’s most cancers. And a few of Kennedy’s Make America Wholesome Once more (MAHA) followers have been talking out towards the payments.
Bayer didn’t reply to questions from Civil Eats by press time.*
State-level messaging and momentum (or lack thereof)
On April 1, Iowans stood in entrance of their state capitol constructing in Des Moines holding letters that spelled out, “NO CANCER GAG ACT.” State Consultant Megan Srinivas, a Democrat, who has been main opposition to the invoice within the legislature, stepped as much as the rostrum.
“This invoice solely offers company earnings a lift,” she mentioned. “It tells Iowans, ‘Your lives don’t matter.’ ”
The invoice, SF 394, handed within the Senate, though all Democrats and 6 Republicans voted towards it. Home lawmakers had an April 4 deadline to take it up of their chamber or it will be lifeless for the session, and the press convention on the state capitol was organized in assist of that end result. A coalition of 31 advocacy teams additionally despatched a letter to Home lawmakers, urging them to oppose the invoice.
On the rally, Srinivas introduced up Iowa’s excessive and rising most cancers charges, a rallying cry from final 12 months’s battle. Srinivas linked these charges to widespread use of agricultural chemical substances within the state.
Bayer has been working advertisements that emphasize glyphosate’s security when used as directed. Lots of the Trendy Ag Alliance’s advertisements emphasize assist for farmers and don’t disclose Bayer’s involvement.
In 2024, farmers sprayed glyphosate on an estimated 15.5 million acres of corn and soybeans fields throughout Iowa. That’s not together with its use in fields sown with different crops like wheat and oats, or throughout lawns, golf programs, and gardens.
“There’s simply extra publicity in Iowa,” mentioned Dani Replogle, an lawyer with Meals & Water Watch.
Nevertheless, well being businesses disagree on the carcinogenic results of glyphosate, and most cancers is an advanced illness with many causes. It’s tough to tease out how a lot of an influence agricultural chemical use has on most cancers charges general or to differentiate the impacts of 1 chemical from one other when so many are used throughout the panorama.
Roundup is much less poisonous in comparison with many different accepted pesticides however is used at a scale that’s exponentially larger than different chemical substances, so its affiliation with non-Hodgkins’ lymphoma threat has had a wider influence. In 2019, for instance, U.S. farmers used about 275 million kilos of glyphosate. Atrazine was the second most generally used herbicide, at 75 million kilos.
Roundup can be extra extensively utilized by people outdoors of agriculture, together with landscapers and gardeners. (Bayer is now within the technique of taking glyphosate out of house use Roundup merchandise as one other prong within the plan to finish lawsuits.) Nevertheless, advocates say it’s necessary to notice that the pesticide immunity payments received’t simply apply to Roundup, they’ll apply to any pesticide.
In assist of the pesticide immunity invoice, Bayer despatched 4 lobbyists to the Iowa state home and solid alliances with highly effective agricultural teams. The Agribusiness Affiliation of Iowa, Iowa Soybean Affiliation, and Iowa Corn Growers Affiliation are all companions within the Trendy Ag Alliance and registered lobbyists to assist the invoice.
In an effort to cross state payments, the corporate has centered on a public messaging marketing campaign that included advertisements on tv, information websites, and social media. Within the first three months of the 12 months, the Trendy Ag Alliance spent about $171,000 on Meta advertisements alone, $21,800 of that focused to Iowa.
A few of the advertisements go on to a web page on the Trendy Ag Alliance web site the place one can click on on a state and ship a pre-written letter to lawmakers supporting a selected invoice. In Iowa, the web site experiences that greater than 600 people have achieved so. Meta solely requires firms to report spending on political advertisements, so the $171,000 doesn’t embody spending on a deluge of Bayer advertisements on glyphosate which were flooding this reporter’s Fb, Instagram, and LinkedIn feeds, for instance, ever since reporting started for this story.
The political advertisements cowl a spread of messages: Some draw unsubstantiated connections between glyphosate litigation and meals costs, arrange Roundup lawsuits as a battle between trial attorneys and farmers, and declare the analysis that hyperlinks Roundup to most cancers is from a “discredited international research.” However a lot of Bayer’s bigger set of advertisements merely hammer away at a easy message: Glyphosate is protected, farmers want it, and if these payments don’t cross, it won’t be accessible anymore.
“They’re selling this concept that farmers want entry to glyphosate to develop corn and soybeans in Iowa, and that’s, in fact, not what the invoice’s about,” Meals & Water Watch’s Breon mentioned. “Glyphosate shouldn’t be going wherever. That is nearly their backside line and their earnings that they’re defending.”
Civil Eats despatched inquiries to Bayer asking particularly about whether or not the corporate would cease making glyphosate however the firm’s consultant didn’t ship solutions by press time.
Farmers, Breon famous, are amongst these most frequently uncovered to agricultural chemical substances, who would possibly wish to retain their proper to sue in case in some unspecified time in the future they’re identified with an sickness and discover that chemical firms knew about undisclosed dangers.
Whereas the Iowa Farm Bureau lobbied for the invoice, the Iowa Farmers Union lobbied towards it, declaring in an announcement that farmers ought to have the ability to search aid in the event that they’re harmed by a chemical and that “Iowa legislation ought to defend our farmers and our communities as a substitute of pesticide firms.”
In Idaho, Jonathan Oppenheimer, the federal government relations director for the Idaho Conservation League, which led opposition to Idaho’s pesticide immunity invoice, mentioned the one message he noticed constructing assist for the payments was the concept Bayer would cease making Roundup if states didn’t grant them immunity and litigation continued. In his state, the Trendy Ag Alliance spent greater than $20,000 on focused Meta advertisements and near 700 individuals stuffed out its legislative motion kind. The invoice died within the legislature with out getting a listening to.
And in February, the Idaho Conservation League launched the outcomes of a survey commissioned by advocacy teams to gauge assist of pesticide payments amongst residents in Idaho, Iowa, and Missouri, the place pesticide immunity payments have been launched in 2024. The pollsters discovered 90 p.c of Idahoans surveyed opposed the payments. “It was overwhelming to the purpose that the polling agency mentioned they’d by no means seen numbers this excessive,” Oppenheimer mentioned.
Given the truth that only a few of the state payments have handed to date, he mentioned, the sentiment might prolong past these states. “It surprises me that Bayer pushed so laborious and spent a lot cash this 12 months with comparatively—aside from Georgia—no success,” he mentioned. “They’ve succeeded in a single state and one state alone.”
In Iowa, on April 3, Republican Home Speaker Pat Grassley introduced that the invoice didn’t have sufficient assist to cross.
Pushing for defense on the federal stage
Whereas Bayer’s state-level efforts look like stalled in most locations, the corporate might nonetheless reach Washington, D.C. In January, Bayer employed Ballard Companions, the lobbying agency with the closest ties to the Trump administration. On the identical time, their advert campaigns started concentrating on areas the place federal lawmakers and different Beltway insiders with affect on agricultural coverage collect and get their information.
For instance, in late March, Bayer’s Trendy Ag Alliance ran full-page advertisements in The Washington Put up and The New York Instances with the headline “Relentless Litigation Threatens Way forward for American Agriculture.” The advertisements warned farmers can’t obtain excessive yields and preserve prices low with out glyphosate. “This can be a actual disaster however we’ve got the facility to repair it,” it learn. “We urge elected officers to face with farmers over the litigation trade and anti-ag activists.”
In February, the corporate sponsored Politico’s Morning Ag e-newsletter. One advert learn, “Farming brings $1.5 trillion to America. Bayer is proud to associate with the nation’s farmers to assist make that doable.” The advert linked to the firm’s “glyphosate information” with info attributing decrease meals costs, environmental beneficial properties, and financial development to glyphosate use.
And on March 13, the corporate sponsored a Politico Reside occasion centered on agriculture coverage. Bayer’s CEO, Invoice Anderson, appeared on stage proper after interviews with senators Deb Fischer (R-Nebraska) Tina Smith (D-Minnesota), and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota), the highest Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee.
On the occasion, Anderson began by framing Bayer as an organization that helps farmers meet urgent challenges. Early in his remarks, he mentioned one of many largest challenges growers face as we speak is “regulatory ambiguity” round glyphosate. “If a producer can do 50 years of security research and be endorsed as protected by each regulatory company on Earth however nonetheless find yourself with billions of {dollars} of litigation, that’s actually laborious, frankly, on the way forward for innovation,” he mentioned. “So, that’s one thing that we expect is fairly necessary, and I’ve talked to many farmers. There are a variety of farm teams in Washington, clearly, and so they see it the identical method. That is important.”
In assist of the pesticide immunity invoice, Bayer despatched 4 lobbyists to the Iowa state home and solid alliances with highly effective agricultural teams.
When the moderator requested concerning the upcoming farm invoice, Anderson spoke concerning the Agricultural Labeling Uniformity Act. “One factor that’s completely important is we’d like readability in pesticide labeling,” he mentioned, explaining that what he sees as a present lack of readability has powered “frivolous” lawsuits. “So, we’ve got a possibility within the subsequent farm invoice to offer readability round that. That’s readability for farmers. That’s readability for the American public. We predict that’s important.”
The Agricultural Labeling Uniformity Act would codify the truth that the EPA is the only authority on pesticide labels and warnings, making failure-to-warn claims tougher to herald courtroom. It could additionally ban states from including their very own labels to pesticides. California, for instance, beforehand added a most cancers warning to glyphosate merchandise based mostly on the findings of the Worldwide Company for Analysis on Most cancers, which has linked glyphosate publicity to most cancers.
Representatives Dusty Johnson (R-South Dakota) and Jim Costa (D-California) launched the uniform labeling invoice in 2023; it has not but been re-introduced on this Congress. Usually, this sort of laws would get connected to a farm invoice, however since there was little motion on passing a brand new farm invoice, lawmakers might attempt to cross it in one other method.
Within the meantime, Bayer and its allies have been commenting on the petition asking the EPA to introduce a rule that will take comparable motion to mandate EPA’s authority on labeling and ban extra warnings by itself, with out ready for Congress. When the Trump administration took workplace, the EPA prolonged the deadline for feedback. Now, the petitioners are awaiting the company’s evaluate of the feedback and, in the end, a choice.
Advocates in states across the nation might flip their consideration to these federal efforts.
In Iowa, Diane Rosenberg acquired her group, Jefferson County Farmers and Neighbors (JFAN), concerned in opposing pesticide immunity payments regardless that it wasn’t their typical struggle: JFAN has been opposing the enlargement of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) throughout Iowa for years.
However Bayer’s try to realize immunity from Roundup lawsuits, she mentioned, is analogous in the way in which that massive agricultural firms wish to name the photographs in rural America.
“All people—the neighbor, the farmer, everyone—is mainly underneath the thumb of those firms,” she mentioned. “The actual fact these chemical firms need immunity from the hurt that their pesticides might have on a person or many people, it’s simply not honest. To me, it feels morally bankrupt.”
After Civil Eats revealed this text, a Bayer spokesperson emailed an announcement to Civil Eats that reads, partially:
“Proposed laws on the federal and state stage—similar to payments being thought-about in various states—would merely assist be certain that any pesticide registered with the EPA—and offered underneath a label in keeping with the EPA’s personal determinations—is ample to fulfill necessities for well being and security warnings.
These payments are necessary as a result of they reinforce the authority of the EPA’s rigorous, science-backed labeling choices, in order that when the EPA determines what a crop safety label ought to say, that call is constant and dependable for everybody.
The notion of those payments being a blanket immunity defend is a false narrative positioned by the Litigation Business as a distortion of the reality. No firm needs to be afforded blanket immunity. Plaintiffs frequently allege numerous causes of motion/claims together with negligence, Breach of Guarantee and others. These are totally different than failure to warn.”
