SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
glyphosate
The Left Should Partner with MAHA to Protect Our Health From Glyphosate
In a time with few points of consensus on the left and right, most Americans—a whopping 84% of adults—are worried about their exposure to harmful chemicals. Let's build on that for a safer country.
Aug 04, 2026
The Supreme Court recently ruled 7-2 that Monsanto, now owned by Bayer, could not be sued because the label of its product, the weed killer Roundup, didn’t mention that the herbicide could cause cancer. The ruling blocked thousands of lawsuits by cancer patients—protecting Bayer-Monsanto from liability for health consequences of exposure to agricultural chemicals—and led to headlines like “MAHA Rattled” and “MAHA Be Damned.”
After the Supreme Court decision and the Trump administration’s approval of two more “forever chemical” pesticides last month, it seems like the Make America Healthy Again agenda is being dropped. Despite what some on the left may think, this is not cause for celebration.
In a time with few points of consensus on the left and right, most Americans—a whopping 84% of adults—are worried about their exposure to harmful chemicals. Nearly as many want the government to do more to identify and regulate harmful chemicals. Regulating Roundup and other pesticides can bring together a new coalition of people across political lines. The left needs to be open to forming new alliances with people we don’t agree with on everything, including MAHA.
Reforming laws so that chemical manufacturers have to accept liability when their products cause harm is one space for bipartisan work. Most Americans don’t want companies like Monsanto-Bayer to be protected from lawsuits when they manufacture hazardous products that result in illnesses. Yet the Supreme Court’s decision does just that: It protects pesticide makers from bearing any consequences when people use their products, unaware of possible dangers of doing so, and later develop illnesses connected to pesticide use, like cancer.
Partnering on one topic while disagreeing on others is part of what politics is about.
Tobacco companies can be sued for the harms of lung cancer and addiction, an achievement after decades when companies were shielded from lawsuits. Pesticide companies should similarly be liable for the harms they knowingly create.
Corporate accountability should be something everyone can agree on. There are already moves toward collaboration in response to the Supreme Court decision. This spring, Democrats joined House Republicans Anna Paulina Luna (Fla.) and Thomas Massie (Ky.) in their push against pesticide liability shields. Then in June, two members of Congress from different political parties—Massie and Democrat Rep. Chellie Pingree (Maine)—proposed the People Over Poison Act, which restores the ability of consumers to hold pesticide makers accountable when they don’t warn us about the harms associated with their products, effectively undoing the Supreme Court decision.
Another possibility for collaboration is how chemicals like Roundup are assessed by the Environmental Protection Agency. When the EPA regulates pesticides, the approach requires scientific proof of harm in order to restrict a particular chemical. But we should shift the burden of proof onto chemical companies, as they do in Europe, by asking, “Has this chemical been proven safe?” instead of “has this chemical been proven harmful?”
In the EU, chemicals are regulated according to this approach, also known as the precautionary principle. Perhaps that explains why the US currently allows the use of 72 pesticides and herbicides banned in Europe (more than a quarter of all US pesticide use). A recent Newsweek poll found 89% of Americans (including 87% of Republicans) in favor of a ban on pesticides already banned in Europe. If Bayer-Monsanto wants to keep selling Roundup, they should have to meet this stronger burden of proof.
Those who want to limit Roundup face an uphill battle. Even in the EU, Glyphosate is licensed for use until 2033, and recent reporting shows how powerful lobbyists are putting pressure on the European Commission to delay EU targets to cut pesticide use. Just as in the US, a revolving door between industry and regulators, the influence of lobbyists, and ghostwritten and industry-funded science impact what chemicals get approved. Now, these same lobbyists—who also work for Bayer-Monsanto—want to dismantle Europe’s chemical license renewal process altogether, so new scientific evidence about health risks wouldn’t apply to these decisions. That similar dynamics keep glyphosate on the market in Europe is less a counterargument than another loophole that should be tightened.
Some are already seeing the usefulness of finding allies in unexpected places. For example, Indian eco-feminist Vandana Shiva does not align with MAHA moms in several respects, but she has been a longtime advocate of food sovereignty and a critic of chemical and seed companies that impact farmers in South Asia. Before the Supreme Court decision, Vandana Shiva protested alongside Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and MAHA activist “Glyphosate Girl.” She also co-founded a group called Mothers Across the World with Zen Honeycutt, a MAHA mom and fan of Turning Point USA. They might disagree about many things, but Shiva and Honeycutt have a shared cause in regulating chemicals like glyphosate.
Partnering on one topic while disagreeing on others is part of what politics is about. We would do well to embrace even strange bedfellows.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Supreme Court's Monsanto Ruling Proves Trump Promise to 'Make America Healthy Again' Was a Farce
If one needed any further proof, today’s decision is all the evidence needed.
Jun 25, 2026
The US Supreme Court on Thursday sided with pesticide manufacturer Bayer in Monsanto Company v. Durnell, ruling that federal law preempts lawsuits brought by cancer patients who allege its Roundup product was to blame for their disease.
With the Trump administration siding with Bayer in the litigation, the devastating ruling by the court extends this legal shield to all pesticide corporations, leaving patients harmed by these toxic agricultural chemicals without the recourse of litigation that has cost Bayer billions of dollars.
Once again, the Supreme Court has sided with big business over people and the environment. This ruling is a disaster for public health—and it has Trump’s name written all over it. If one needed any further proof that the president’s feigned mission to "Make America Healthy Again" was a farce, today’s decision is all the evidence needed. Trump has been all too willing to endorse Bayer’s crusade to pollute with impunity, while the administration doubles down on a failed pesticide regulatory scheme.
Industrial agriculture is poisoning America. The fight against toxic pesticides does not end here. Congress must pass the Pesticide Injury Accountability Act to safeguard access to justice for all harmed by these toxic chemicals, and a Farm Bill that finally puts public health first. Until then, the Supreme Court has shut the courthouse doors to tens of thousands of sick and suffering Americans."
Today’s ruling comes despite a litany of evidence suggesting that glyphosate, the key ingredient in Bayer’s ubiquitous Roundup pesticide, is carcinogenic, and that the Environmental Protection Agency’s pesticide registration process is fatally flawed. The World Health Organization has defined glyphosate as a probable carcinogen since 2015. Roundup is the most widely used pesticide in the United States.
The decision completes Bayer’s years-long, well-financed quest to stifle cancer lawsuits cutting into its bottom line. Since purchasing Monsanto in 2018, Bayer has spent over $11 billion settling over 100,000 cancer lawsuits related to Roundup. Bayer has been pushing widely-opposed Cancer Gag Act bills nationwide, seeking to shield pesticide corporations from health-related lawsuits in multiple states and Congress. So far this year, the immunity legislation has failed in 11 states and was stripped from the House Farm Bill and left out of the Senate version.
There is a better way, including the Pesticide Injury Accountability Act, introduced by Sen. Corey Booker (D-NJ), which would restore the right to sue over pesticide harms. It's a right all Americans deserve.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Trump's Name Written All Over It': Supreme Court Sides With Monsanto Over Roundup Cancer Victims
"People who were exposed, workers who were never warned, consumers who trusted a label—they now have fewer tools to use to fight back. And the corporations responsible for that harm have more protection than ever."
Jun 25, 2026
Public health advocates, legal experts, and members of Congress were among those outraged on Thursday by the US Supreme Court's ruling in favor of Monsanto—and, effectively, against thousands of people who argue that its weedkiller Roundup caused their cancer.
Jay Feldman, executive director of the organization Beyond Pesticides, blasted the 7-2 decision as "a tragic setback for public and environmental health, allowing companies that produce toxic pesticides to evade the most basic of responsibilities, warning consumers that their products may cause cancer and other deadly diseases."
"In an age of deregulation, the ability of farmers, farmworkers, and consumers to hold chemical manufacturers accountable for hazard warnings is the keystone to minimum protection of public health, as demand in the market for the safest possible products grows daily," Feldman said in a statement.
The closely watched case stems from a state-level lawsuit and a resulting verdict in favor of John Durnell, a Missouri man who argued that Monsanto's glyphosate-based Roundup caused his non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a blood cancer, which is in remission after multiple rounds of chemotherapy. A jury agreed the herbicide's label should have had a cancer warning.
The World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer classified glyphosate as probably carcinogenic to humans over a decade ago, but the US Environmental Protection Agency and Bayer still insist it is safe. In a majority opinion penned by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the country's high court agreed with the company's argument that the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) preempts Durnell's failure-to-warn claim under state law.
In a dissent joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that "the majority reads into FIFRA a labeling requirement that does not exist, and it reads out of FIFRA the statute's ongoing prohibition on misbranding. This interpretation cannot be squared with the text of FIFRA or our precedents. Ultimately, the effect of the majority's interpretation is both remarkable and regrettable, for it unjustifiably closes the courthouse doors to state tort plaintiffs like Durnell."
Bayer—which bought Monsanto in 2018—similarly noted in a Thursday statement that the ruling "should help significantly contain the Roundup litigation after nearly a decade of legal battles," which the company also said that it will keep trying to resolve by seeking final approval of its proposed $7.25 billion class settlement.
"This case was never just about Bayer," Environmental Working Group president and co-founder Ken Cook emphasized Thursday. "It was about whether states retain the authority to provide stronger protections for their residents when federal regulations fall short, and whether ordinary Americans can hold powerful corporations accountable when their pesticides cause harm."
Despite returning to office with a promise to "Make America Healthy Again" alongside Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump's administration "didn't sit on the sidelines—it lobbied the Supreme Court to strip Americans of their right to sue. And its tactics worked," Cook pointed out. "When a president uses the vast power of the federal government to protect a pesticide company from accountability—instead of the people he swore to serve—our system is no longer working for ordinary Americans."
"The ultimate losers are the American people," Cook concluded. "People who were exposed, workers who were never warned, consumers who trusted a label—they now have fewer tools to use to fight back. And the corporations responsible for that harm have more protection than ever."
Federal lawmakers who have fought against GOP efforts to pass a legislative "liability shield" for pesticide companies, including Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Congressman Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) joined Cook in ripping the ruling, as did Earthjustice senior attorney Patti Goldman, who said that it "allows Monsanto and other chemical companies to avoid responsibility when their labels leave people unprotected from serious harm."
As Farm Action president Angela Huffman also warned that the ruling "sets a dangerous precedent for other corporations seeking similar immunity," Sarah Starman, senior food and agriculture Campaigner at Friends of the Earth, took aim at the Supreme Court for issuing a decision that "sells out farmers, gardeners, and rural communities to multibillion-dollar pesticide corporations."
Food & Water Watch legal director Tarah Heinzen, also condemned the decision, declaring that "once again, the Supreme Court has sided with big business over people and the environment."
"Today's ruling is a disaster for public health—and it has Trump's name written all over it," said Heinzen. "If one needed any further proof that the president's feigned mission to 'Make America Healthy Again' was a farce, today's decision is all the evidence needed. Trump has been all too willing to endorse Bayer's crusade to pollute with impunity, while the administration doubles down on a failed pesticide regulatory scheme."
"Industrial agriculture is poisoning America," she stressed. "The fight against toxic pesticides does not end here. Congress must pass the Pesticide Injury Accountability Act to safeguard access to justice for all harmed by these toxic chemicals, and a Farm Bill that finally puts public health first. Until then, the Supreme Court has shut the courthouse doors to tens of thousands of sick and suffering Americans."
Kayla Hancock, director of Protect Our Care's Public Health Project, also called out Trump for dispatching US Solicitor General D. John Sauer to argue the case on the side of Bayer and its legal team.
"First Donald Trump signed an executive order plowing the field for increased glyphosate production despite the known health risks to help grow profits for his chemical industry donors," Hancock said. "Then Trump dispatched his [US Department of Justice] lawyers to help Big Chemical secure blanket immunity from at least 100,000 glyphosate-related liability claims."
"Sadly, the Supreme Court agreed to give glyphosate makers a free pass to poison Americans without warning," she added. "Donald Trump always has and always will prioritize big money corporate interests that benefit him, even if it means marginalizing the MAHA movement and concerned moms. And whenever Trump sells out public health to the highest industry bidder, there's no bigger apologist than his phony health secretary, RFK Jr."
Keep ReadingShow Less
From 'Clean Eating' to Clean Rules: What Progressives Can Collaborate On With MAHA
The question isn’t whether the two groups share a few habits; it’s whether they can work together to build the political muscle needed to implement regulations that make everyone safer.
May 04, 2026
Eat real food. Buy organic. Filter your water.
Scroll through Instagram and you’ll find no shortage of such advice from the “MAHA girls,”—young women drawn to the Make America Healthy Again movement. If you have been accustomed to MAHA through its most famous champion—Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who helped popularize the slogan—#MAHA girls show a wider and growing allure of MAHA and their messages.
It’s tempting for progressives to either mock them or tune out, especially given their association with the current administration. But that would be a mistake. Not because MAHA has the right solutions—it often doesn’t—but because it names a real problem: Our modern lives are saturated with industrial contaminants from which individual consumer hacks can’t protect us.
As a sociologist who studies food systems, I recognize the mix of anxiety and practicality driving this trend. The MAHA movement’s concerns overlap with long-standing environmental and public health priorities championed by progressives. But the question isn’t whether these groups share a few “clean” habits; it’s whether they can work together to build the political muscle needed to implement regulations that make everyone safer.
Rather than rejecting MAHA’s sentiments, progressives need to listen carefully to the experiences that drive this movement, while being mindful of the limits of individual actions.
Consider glyphosate, the active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup. There has been ongoing debate over its potential consequences. Thousands of lawsuits have been filed against Monsanto and its parent company, Bayer. And on April 27, the US Supreme Court heard arguments in Monsanto v. Durnell. The MAHA movement is watching the case closely and held a protest outside the Supreme Court.
Environmental and public health advocates have warned about these chemicals for decades. On this point, MAHA advocates and progressive environmentalists are aligned: Both want glyphosate out of the food system.
Or take fermented foods. My book, Fermenting for the Future, traces the decline of fermentation practices in industrial societies and the resulting loss of gut microbial diversity. Our guts are often described as the “industrial microbiota”—but thanks to our modern food system, they are becoming a less diverse ecosystem linked to a rise in chronic conditions. That’s because industrial food systems don’t just add questionable additives; they also reshape “traditional” foods that are standardized, pasteurized, or only nominally fermented—optimized for cost and convenience.
Here, too, MAHA supporters often agree. They champion fermented foods such as kimchi and miso and emphasize gut health. These concerns have even entered mainstream policy, as seen in the 2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which highlighted gut health and fermented foods.
Usually, MAHA’s intellectual roots are traced simply to MAGA (Make America Great Again). But its intellectual roots run deeper: health freedom movements, environmentalism, and women’s health activism—many of which have progressive roots.
But there are key differences and they matter.
First, MAHA discourse is marked by a strong current of purism: the idea that we can purify our bodies, homes, and communities if we shop correctly and avoid the “bad” stuff. Purism often draws a moral boundary between the “pure” and the “impure.” Historically, such thinking can slide from labeling chemicals as “impure” to applying the same labels to people—feeding stigma, exclusion, and conspiracy thinking.
Purism also rests on an illusion. We live in a world saturated with contaminants—from microplastics to forever chemicals—such that we are, in a sense, born “pre-polluted.” To try to shield ourselves individually by careful shopping choices is impossible and creates a sense of false security.
Second, the movement is deeply shaped by healthism—an idea that puts most of the responsibility for health on personal behavior. If you feel unwell, the MAHA approach is to take personal steps: Monitor your glucose, eliminate processed foods, buy organic. Structural factors—regulation, labor conditions, environmental exposure—fade into the background.
This is a paradox. While MAHA advocates sometimes call for tighter regulation of certain substances, their overall mindset often distrusts government and scientists, which limits their willingness for necessary systemic reforms and support for experts.
Healthism also obscures inequality. The capacity to “choose health” is unevenly distributed. A single mother juggling multiple precarious jobs likely lacks both the time to research good supplements and the income to purchase organic foods. Without structural changes in how food is produced, regulated, and distributed, those with fewer resources will continue to bear higher burdens—and then be blamed for their circumstances.
Despite these differences, the underlying overlap to progressive causes offers a window of opportunity. Many of the MAHA girls on Instagram are responding to real personal experiences that speak to larger issues: chronic symptoms without clear diagnoses, medical visits that feel rushed or dismissive. Conditions such as allergies, eczema, irritable bowel syndrome, and diabetes have become prevalent, and the fear that today’s generation may fare worse than their parents cannot be waved away as mere hyperbole.
Rather than rejecting MAHA’s sentiments, progressives need to listen carefully to the experiences that drive this movement, while being mindful of the limits of individual actions. If we are serious about making Americans—and the environments we inhabit—healthier, we can’t rely on individual choices alone.
We should meet this moment with “clean rules,” not just clean eating. Tackling bad food requires sustained advocacy for better regulations that foremostly consider the existing and potential harms to the most socioeconomically marginalized, such as farm laborers, fenceline communities, and the poor. And better food governance requires more support for scientists and public agencies that help to build a solid knowledge base for regulations and for them to be fully enforced.
“Clean” also means addressing conflict of interests in appointment of officials, in scientific data gathering, and in the endorsement of “solutions” including commercial products. Those reforms would help everyone—including the people with the least time and money to manage risk on their own.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Despite Defeat of Pesticide Liability Shield, House Farm Bill Still 'Has Industry Fingerprints All Over It'
Support for stripping the pesticide provisions, said one advocate, "is proof that the Farm Bill should strengthen our food system, support farmers, and safeguard public health—not serve as a vehicle for corporate giveaways."
Apr 30, 2026
The diverse coalition opposed to a legislative "liability shield" for the pesticide industry celebrated on Thursday after the US House of Representatives stripped it out of the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026—though progressive voices still sounded the alarm about the chamber's approval of the amended bill.
Dozens of Republicans and all but six Democrats backed Rep. Anna Paulina Luna's (R-Fla.) amendment targeting the protections for the pesticide industry. The 280-142 vote removed Sections 10205, 10206, and 10207 from the Farm Bill—which was later approved 224-200, with support from 14 Democrats and all but three Republicans.
"Major pesticide issues haven't been debated on the House floor in a very long time," said Jason Davidson, senior food and agriculture campaigner with Friends of the Earth US, in a statement. "For the people to win over the size, influence, and money of the pesticide industry is a remarkable display of grassroots power and a tremendous victory for Americans' ability to hold these companies accountable."
The House vote came just days after pesticide critics held "The People v. Poison" rally outside the US Supreme Court as the justices heard arguments in Monsanto Company v. Durnell, which is expected to have sweeping implications for cancer patients trying to take on the maker of the weedkiller Roundup, whose key active ingredient is glyphosate.
Bayer—which bought Monsanto in 2018—and the US Environmental Protection Agency insist glyphosate is safe, even though the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer classified it as a probable carcinogen to humans over a decade ago.
Despite President Donald Trump campaigning on a promise to "Make America Healthy Again," he has often served the pesticide industry, including by siding with Bayer in the case before the high court and signing a February executive order mandating production of glyphosate—a measure that also included a liability shield.
Sens. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) on Wednesday introduced the No Immunity for Glyphosate Act to reverse Trump's order. The bill's lead sponsors in the House, Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), were among those cheering the passage of Luna's amendment on Thursday.
"Industrial agriculture's pesticide addiction is poisoning America," declared Food and Water Watch senior food policy analyst Rebecca Wolf. "From the fields of Iowa to the halls of Congress, advocates have made our voices clear: Bayer's cruel Cancer Gag campaign has no place in our communities. US farm policy must support farmers and consumers, not the corporate overlords pulling the strings at our expense."
Wolf's group praised the defeat of the pesticide language but remains concerned about the EATS/Save Our Bacon Act, conservation cuts, and the Farm Bill's failure to reverse the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act's attack on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
"This Farm Bill has industry fingerprints all over it. By shrinking markets for high-welfare sustainable farmers, and doubling down on devastating cuts to federal food assistance, this pro-factory farm bill will do more harm than good," Wolf warned. "It's time to end the corporate power grab in Washington. This Farm Bill must be dead on arrival in the Senate."
Earthjustice Action legislative director of healthy communities Ranjani Prabhakar was also critical, arguing that "by passing this deeply flawed Farm Bill, House Republicans have doubled down on an approach that puts corporate polluters ahead of farmers, families, and our environment. This legislation weakens long-standing protections for endangered species and critical ecosystems and strips funding from conservation programs that help farmers combat climate change."
The "overwhelming support" for Luna's amendment, Prabhakar said, "is proof that the Farm Bill should strengthen our food system, support farmers, and safeguard public health—not serve as a vehicle for corporate giveaways. We urge the Senate to reject this harmful bill and work toward a solution that truly invests in resilient agriculture, healthy communities, and a sustainable future."
Progressive lawmakers also blasted the broader bill. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said that "the Farm Bill is a real opportunity to help farmers and Americans across this country. However, Republicans are using it as a shell to push through permanent cuts to food assistance, even as food prices continue to skyrocket."
"As we take food from hungry kids," she said, referring to SNAP cuts, "this bill also leaves American farmers without a lifeline after they have lost billions thanks to Trump's tariffs. At the end of the day, this bill will make more people hungry and does nothing to address the affordability crisis or struggling workers."
While welcoming that the legislation will no longer shield pesticide manufacturers from liability for their products, Jayapal charged that "today's Farm Bill is a further betrayal of the American people."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Heinrich, Booker Push 'No Immunity for Glyphosate' Bill as Supreme Court Weighs Monsanto Case
Sen. Cory Booker said it "will overturn President Trump's executive order that prioritizes pesticide company profits over public health and ensure that people who have gotten cancer from glyphosate can seek justice."
Apr 29, 2026
On the heels of the US Supreme Court hearing arguments in Monsanto Company v. Durnell, Sens. Martin Heinrich and Cory Booker on Wednesday introduced legislation intended to overturn President Donald Trump's executive order mandating production of the highly contentious weedkiller at the center of that case.
"Since my time serving as a City Council member in Newark, I have seen firsthand the devastating harm caused by toxic chemicals in our communities," Booker (D-NJ) said in a statement. "That is why, this week at a rally in front of the Supreme Court, I stood with cancer survivors, activists, and Make America Healthy Again advocates to protest against providing a liability shield to foreign corporations that are poisoning the American people."
"It is why I filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court supporting Americans who developed cancer after using a toxic pesticide in a case that will determine whether thousands harmed by glyphosate can have their day in court—and why I am a proud co-sponsor of the No Immunity for Glyphosate Act," he added, "legislation that will overturn President Trump's executive order that prioritizes pesticide company profits over public health and ensure that people who have gotten cancer from glyphosate can seek justice in federal court."
Despite Trump's campaign promise to "Make America Healthy Again," he has frequently served the pesticide industry, including by siding with Bayer—which bought Monsanto in 2018—in the case before the high court, and by signing the February order invoking the Defense Production Act for glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup.
Specifically, Trump directed US Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins to ensure "a continued and adequate supply of elemental phosphorus and glyphosate-based herbicides." He also noted that domestic producers are required to comply with his order, and under the federal law he invoked, those doing so have broad legal immunity.
Just before Trump's order, Bayer announced a proposed settlement for the tens of thousands of people who say exposure to Roundup caused their cancer. Still, the company and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continue to claim glyphosate is safe, despite the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer classifying it as probably carcinogenic to humans over a decade ago.
The case before the Supreme Court stems from a lawsuit and a resulting verdict in favor of John Durnell, a Missouri man whose blood cancer is in remission after multiple rounds of chemotherapy. The justices' decision could determine whether many others are able to continue pursuing cases against Bayer. Republicans are also pushing to include a "liability shield" for pesticide manufacturers in the next Farm Bill.
Meanwhile, Booker and Heinrich's (D-NM) bill states that "no federal funds may be obligated or expended to implement, administer, or enforce" Trump's glyphosate order, and "any person, or the estate, survivors, or legal representative of such person, who suffers or has suffered physical injury, illness, disease, or death caused, in whole or in part, by exposure to elemental phosphorus or a glyphosate-based herbicide manufactured, distributed, sold, or supplied within the United States, may bring a civil action in an appropriate district court of the United States against any covered entity."
Heinrich said Wednesday that "juries across the country are looking at the evidence and delivering verdicts: Exposure to glyphosate can cause cancer. The Supreme Court cannot and should not allow these verdicts to be overturned."
"My constituents' health and safety comes first. And I will not stand by while President Trump gives immunity to those who put my constituents' health and safety at risk," he added. "That’s why I’m proud to lead the No Immunity for Glyphosate Act, legislation that will restore accountability, uphold court rulings, and protect the health and well-being of families in New Mexico and across the country."
The bill is also backed by Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.). Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) introduced companion legislation in February, just after Trump's order. The lead sponsors in the House of Representatives also are working to strip the immunity shield from the Farm Bill and joined Booker at "The People v. Poison" rally outside the Supreme Court on Monday.
The next day, another House Democrat, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), questioned EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin about the immunity shield in Trump's order, as well as his meeting with Bayer's CEO last year and some related internal emails.
"AOC smoked him in there," Drop Site News reporter Julian Andreone said on social media. "Red-handed."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Bayer Continues Push to 'Close the Door' on Glyphosate Victims at US Supreme Court
"Bayer is intent on preserving its right to harm at all costs—a pursuit the Trump administration is all too willing to endorse," said a Food and Water Watch campaigner.
Apr 27, 2026
As pesticide critics held a "The People v. Poison" rally outside the US Supreme Court on Monday, the justices heard arguments in Monsanto Company v. Durnell, a case whose conclusion is expected to have sweeping implications for cancer patients trying to take on the Roundup maker—now owned by Bayer—in the country's legal system.
The case stems from John Durnell's 2019 lawsuit against Monsanto in Missouri state court, alleging that exposure to the herbicide Roundup—whose active ingredient is glyphosate—caused his non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a type of blood cancer. A jury found that the company failed to warn users of the risks associated with the weedkiller, and awarded Durnell $1.25 million in damages.
Bayer argued before the Supreme Court on Monday that Durnell—and others like him—should not be able to bring such a suit because the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act preempts state rules for labeling pesticides when the Environmental Protection Agency doesn't require a cancer warning. Bayer and the EPA continue to insist that glyphosate is safe, despite the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer classifying it as probably carcinogenic to humans over a decade ago.
As The Associated Press and Reuters reported, the justices appeared "divided" on Monday, with the AP noting that several "seemed sympathetic to the company's argument that it can't be sued under state law because federal regulators have found Roundup likely doesn't cause cancer. Others, though, grilled attorneys about whether that wrongly stops states from responding to changing research."
Patti Goldman, senior attorney at Earthjustice—which filed an amicus brief in this case on behalf of farmworker organizations—said in a statement that "questions from the justices recognized that the Environmental Protection Agency approves pesticide labels based on the evidence before the agency at a single moment in time, but that evidence can become outdated as real-world exposure grows and scientific studies document resulting harms."
"Federal law requires the manufacturers to update their labels to provide sufficient warnings and directions to protect the public," Goldman stressed, "and state failure-to-warn claims reinforce that obligation—while ensuring children, families, and workers have a path to seek remedies for the harm they suffer."
Other groups that have submitted amicus briefs include Environmental Protection Network—which is made up of former EPA staffers—and the Center for Food Safety, one of the advocacy organizations that joined the rally outside the court. The event was also attended by members of Congress from both major political parties.
"This isn't left v. right—it's right v. wrong," said US Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ). "Big corporations and their lobbyists have captured both parties, putting profits over our families' health. I've fought Monsanto and Bayer for years, and just filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court to protect our right to sue them for illnesses caused by their products."
Despite President Donald Trump's campaign promise to "Make America Healthy Again," the Republican recently issued an executive order mandating the production of glyphosate, and the US Department of Justice has sided with Bayer in this case—part of a broader trend of his administration serving the pesticide industry's interests.
"Monsanto Company v. Durnell will have enormous consequences for environmental health litigation," Food and Water Watch legal director Tarah Heinzen said Monday. "Bayer is intent on preserving its right to harm at all costs—a pursuit the Trump administration is all too willing to endorse. This case threatens to close the courthouse doors to the many Americans harmed by pesticides."
Heinzen argued that "should the Supreme Court hold that the Environmental Protection Agency's failed pesticide regulatory scheme preempts state failure to warn lawsuits, leaving tens of thousands of sick Americans without legal recourse, Trump and his industry-dominated EPA will be to blame."
"This high stakes case should be a wake-up call for Congress to act," the campaigner added. "Industrial agriculture's pesticide addiction is poisoning America. Congress must pass the Pesticide Injury Accountability Act to safeguard access to justice for all harmed by toxic pesticides."
As The American Prospect noted Monday in its "three-part series on Bayer's crusade for immunity from Roundup-related cancer claims," the company "is now aggressively lobbying Congress to permanently close the door" on the weedkiller's victims, and managed to get an immunity provision included in the 2026 Farm Bill that advanced out of the US House Agriculture Committee last month.
After joining the rally at the Supreme Court on Monday, Friends of the Earth (FOE) US led a protest outside Bayer's headquarters in downtown Washington, DC, delivering hundreds of thousands of petition signatures are calling on the company to phase out the production of toxic pesticides, including glyphosate and neonicotinoids.
"People are sick and tired of being exposed to toxic pesticides while pesticide corporations shirk responsibility," said FOE senior campaigner Sarah Starman, who spoke at the rally. "Bayer and other pesticide companies should not be allowed to profit from chemicals that threaten our health, harm our environment, and undermine the future of our food system. The hundreds of people who rallied outside the Supreme Court and the 200,000 people who signed comments to Bayer are demanding change."
In the leadup to the arguments before the nation's top court, the Environmental Working Group last week sued the Trump administration at the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, accusing the EPA of unlawfully delaying its response to an EWG petition seeking stronger restrictions on glyphosate.
"The EPA's silence leaves families in the dark and falls far short of its responsibility to protect public health," declared EWG president and co-founder Ken Cook. "It's time for the agency to stop stalling and do its job."Keep ReadingShow Less
Citing Child Cancer Risk, Lawsuit Targets Trump EPA Over Glyphosate
"The EPA's silence leaves families in the dark and falls far short of its responsibility to protect public health," said the Environmental Working Group's president.
Apr 21, 2026
Just days before the US Supreme Court is set to hear arguments related to glyphosate's health risks, the Environmental Working Group on Tuesday sued the Trump administration for unlawfully delaying its response to an EWG petition seeking stronger restrictions on "the most widely used herbicide in the United States and globally."
The filing at the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit calls out the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for failing to act on evidence that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup, "is exposing infants and young children to harmful levels through everyday foods."
EWG and its co-petitioners filed a formal administrative petition under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act in 2018, during President Donald Trump's first term, and amended it the following year. They want the EPA to revoke or modify the glyphosate policy for oats, so it's stricter, and restrict its use as a pre-harvest drying agent.
"Congress required EPA to ensure that pesticide residues in food are safe, with particular protection for children," the new filing states. "Yet, more than seven years after being presented with substantial scientific evidence that the current tolerance for glyphosate in oats may not meet that standard, EPA has failed to make any final, reviewable determination."
EWG president and co-founder Ken Cook declared in a Tuesday statement that "parents shouldn't have to second-guess whether everyday foods like cereal and snack bars are putting their children at risk of cancer."
"The EPA's silence leaves families in the dark and falls far short of its responsibility to protect public health," he continued. "It's time for the agency to stop stalling and do its job."
The World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer classified glyphosate as "probably carcinogenic" to humanity over a decade ago, while the EPA has repeatedly claimed that it is not likely to cause cancer in humans despite mounting research, the recent retraction of a landmark study on the pesticide's supposed safety, and legal battles between patients and Bayer, which bought Monsanto in 2018.
Next week, the nation's top court is set to hear arguments in a case that, as EWG warned Tuesday, "could have sweeping implications for whether farmers and consumers can keep pursuing lawsuits for harms linked to glyphosate, and whether states can require warning labels on glyphosate products."
The Wall Street Journal noted Monday that while the company continues to insist on glyphosate's safety, it "wants anyone with a claim to join the settlement" negotiated with a team of lawyers representing around 40,000 claimants that "would bring Bayer's total price tag to resolve the Roundup litigation to roughly $22 billion."
Despite Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s campaign promise to "Make America Healthy Again," the administration has notably sided with Bayer in the case before the Supreme Court, and the president in February even issued an executive order mandating the production of glyphosate.
"If anyone still wondered whether 'Make America Healthy Again' was a genuine commitment to protecting public health or a scam concocted by President Trump and RFK Jr. to rally health-conscious voters in 2024, today's decision answers that question," Cook said at the time. "It's a shocking betrayal to all of us but especially the people who live and work near farm fields where glyphosate is used."
Still, EWG is plowing ahead with its legal action, arguing that "the EPA has a clear legal duty to act on this petition, and it has simply refused to do so," as the group's general counsel and COO, Caroline Leary, put it. "This kind of delay has real consequences for families who rely on the agency to ensure children are not exposed to toxic farm chemical residues like glyphosate."
"This is exactly the kind of situation where courts are meant to step in," Leary added. "The EPA cannot avoid its responsibilities simply by doing nothing."
Keep ReadingShow Less
The Truth About Roundup Herbicide
For decades Roundup has been sold as an effective herbicide, one that was safe for humans and the environment. It isn't.
Mar 01, 2026
Mark Twain supposedly once said, "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story," but there is a difference between a good story told in fun and a story (supposedly backed by independent scientific research) that people are led to believe because, well, science is supposed to be true. And so we come to the story of Roundup, the herbicide developed by Monsanto that swept the world because it worked and was the “safe” alternative to widely used weedkillers like Dicamba and 2,4-D,—it was said to be safer than table salt!
Roundup was developed in the 1970s as a non-selective herbicide, meaning it would kill almost any growing plant it touched. It was an effective burn-down herbicide farmers could apply prior to planting, and it assured an almost weed-free field at the beginning of the growing season. Roundup could be used in non-agricultural situations as well, to kill weeds and grass growing in sidewalk and patio cracks, around buildings, etc, but care was needed because, as noted, it was non-target and could kill whatever plant it touched.
For farmers, it worked well, except while it did kill growing weeds, buried weed seeds were not harmed, so a weed-free field at planting time did not ensure a weed-free field throughout the growing season. Weeds would continue to sprout, and more herbicide applications would be needed during the growing season.
Then Monsanto developed their big fix released in 1996, genetically engineered (GE) soybeans resistant to Roundup, followed by GE versions of other commodity crops: corn, cotton, sugar beet, and canola. Over-the-top spraying of these GE crops would kill everything but the crop, and Roundup became one of the most widely used herbicides in the world and GE crops came to dominate world commodity crop production.
Companies like Bayer have to protect their product and their profit even if they have to tell a few lies to do so.
While Monsanto sold Roundup with the slogan, “One spray is all you’ll ever need,” in time, it became clear that some weeds were developing resistance to Roundup and farmers were right back where they started, looking for herbicides that worked consistently. More genetic modifications were made to commodity crops making them resistant to other herbicides, like Dicamba and 2,4-D, the herbicides Roundup was supposed to have replaced. These multiple GE or “stacked” crops could be sprayed with a cocktail of herbicides, hopefully ensuring weed-free fields for the entire growing season.
Farmers are using more herbicide, even on the GE crops, and costs for GE seed have risen much faster than non-GE seed. Of course, the motive was never to reduce the farmer’s production costs or agricultural herbicide use but to increase it—that's where the profit is.
For farmers who didn’t jump on the GE bandwagon, finding non-GE seed is often difficult. Even more onerous, some farmers have found it necessary to plant GE seed as a preventative measure because non-GE crops can be damaged by chemical drift from neighboring GE fields.
So much for effectiveness, what about the safety of Roundup? In 2000 a study was published in the journal Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology that deemed the active ingredient in Roundup (glyphosate) was safe and not a human health risk. Since then, that study has been cited consistently as proof of Roundup’s safety. Numerous other studies have shown that glyphosate could cause cancer and that the inert ingredients that are part of the patented Roundup formulation increase the toxicity of glyphosate. Further, the practice of using Roundup as a desiccant on small grain crops (oats, wheat, and barley) prior to harvest puts Roundup directly on grain that enters the human food chain.
Since acquiring Monsanto in 2018, Bayer has paid out about $11 billion to settle almost 100,000 cancer-related lawsuits with approximately 61,000 still pending. In December of 2025 another blow to the claimed safety of Roundup came when the Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology journal withdrew the 2000 article that had touted Roundup’s safety. While the study claimed to be independent and peer reviewed, it has come to light that Monsanto's scientists played a significant role in conceiving and writing the article. Oops.
For decades Roundup has been sold as an effective herbicide, one that was safe for humans and the environment, and without which “consequences would be dire.” Companies like Bayer have to protect their product and their profit even if they have to tell a few lies to do so. They claim to produce safe products that help farmers thrive—real independent research refutes that. Bayer and the agribusiness industry may be thriving, but farmers are not and in these times, too few people seem to care that lies are accepted as truth.
Keep ReadingShow Less
After Promising to 'Make America Healthy Again,' Trump Mandates Production of Cancer-Causing Glyphosate
"President Trump just gave Bayer a license to poison people," said one public health advocate. "Full stop.”
Feb 19, 2026
Less than a decade ago, US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. helped win a landmark $289 million verdict against Monsanto, which was found to have distributed a weedkiller containing the carcinogenic chemical glyphosate.
But on Wednesday the nation's top health official could only shrug after President Donald Trump issued an executive order mandating the production of the chemical, which was found in 2015 to be “probably carcinogenic to humans” by the International Agency for Research on Cancer at the World Health Organization.
Trump invoked the Defense Production Act, which has historically been used to spur production of supplies needed for national security, to guarantee the supply of herbicides containing glyphosate, claiming a lack of such weedkillers would "critically jeopardize agricultural productivity, adding pressure to the domestic food system."
Kennedy, who like Trump promised on the campaign trail to confront dangerous pesticides and chemicals, said in a statement that the executive order "puts America first where it matters most—our defense readiness and our food supply." He also hinted during his confirmation hearing last year that the administration would treat glyphosate as a critical supply for farmers.
Ken Cook, president and co-founder of the Environmental Working Group, which supported some aspects of Kennedy's "Make America Healthy Again" agenda, said he couldn't "envision a bigger middle finger to every MAHA mom than this."
“If anyone still wondered whether ‘Make America Healthy Again’ was a genuine commitment to protecting public health or a scam concocted by President Trump and RFK Jr. to rally health-conscious voters in 2024, today’s decision answers that question,” said Cook. “It’s a shocking betrayal to all of us but especially the people who live and work near farm fields where glyphosate is used."
In addition to being linked to cancer, glyphosate has also been found to cause reproductive harms in some studies.
Zen Honeycutt, founder of the pro-MAHA group Moms Across America, said she was "disgusted" by the executive order.
The use of the Defense Production Act could provide Bayer, the pharmaceutical company that acquired herbicide maker Monsanto in 2018, with legal immunity if it is challenged in court again in public health lawsuits.
The executive order is "clearly designed to offer a broad immunity,” Brett Hartl, director of government affairs for the Center for Biological Diversity, told the New York Times.
The order comes months after a major study that had determined glyphosate was safe for humans was retracted by Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, the scientific journal that had published it. It was found that scientists at Monsanto had participated in gathering data for, writing, and reviewing the paper, and that other authors had received compensation from the company for their work. The journal cited “serious ethical concerns regarding the independence and accountability of the authors" when it retracted the article.
The executive order was also announced a year after Bayer donated $1 million to Trump's inaugural committee.
During Trump's first term in 2017, two years after the WHO cancer agency determined glyphosate was likely carcinogenic, the US Environmental Protection Agency issued a finding that the chemical—which is used widely on soybeans, corn, and wheat and in home gardens—was safe.
This week, Bayer announced it had reached a deal to pay $7.25 billion to settle tens of thousands of health lawsuits regarding Roundup, the product that includes glyphosate as its active ingredient. The company continues to claim the herbicide is safe.
“By granting immunity to the makers of the nation's most widely used pesticide, President Trump just gave Bayer a license to poison people," said Cook. "Full stop.”
This article has been updated to note that International Agency for Research on Cancer, a committee of the World Health Organization, found glyphosate to likely be carcinogenic to humans in 2015.
Keep ReadingShow Less
See More
Most Popular
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
News & Opinion
Trending
Common Dreams, Inc. Founded 1997. Registered 501(c3) Non-Profit
Privacy Policy