March 3, 2025 – Trump administration lawyers told Supreme Court justices on Tuesday that they should rule in favor of the chemical company Bayer in an upcoming case that could prevent individuals from suing pesticide companies over claims their products cause cancer and other illnesses.
In an amicus brief, the lawyers said that federal pesticide laws, enforced by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), preempt state laws and jury decisions around the risks of chemicals.
The brief lands at a moment when the herbicide glyphosate has become a flashpoint in the relationship between Republicans and the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) coalition that supports them. MAHA supporters plan to rally in front of the Supreme Court to oppose the administration’s stance on April 27.
The EPA maintains that Roundup—produced by Bayer after its 2018 purchase of Monsanto—and its active ingredient glyphosate are not carcinogenic, despite a classification by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as “probably carcinogenic.”
Roundup is the most widely used weedkiller in history, and many studies have linked regular glyphosate exposure to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. For years, Bayer has been battling thousands of lawsuits in which individuals allege using the product caused them to develop the disease.
One of those lawsuits was brought by Missouri gardener John Durnell, who developed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma after decades of Roundup use. In 2023, a jury found Bayer failed to warn him of the product’s risks and awarded him $1.25 million. The Missouri Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal, and Bayer then petitioned the Supreme Court.
In their brief, administration lawyers said that because the EPA didn’t require a warning, Bayer couldn’t be held responsible for failing to provide one. They also said that if the Supreme Court allowed the lawsuits to continue, a confusing array of state-level warnings on the same products would follow.
In December, the administration made it clear that they were siding with Bayer in the case, but the amicus brief affirms that decision and provides additional legal justification.
In late February, Trump signed an executive order directing the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to boost domestic production of glyphosate, angering many MAHA supporters.
Kennedy defended the order, and many of his supporters accepted his explanation, but the issue of giving companies immunity from lawsuits focused on health harms is more explosive.
On X, Vani Hari, a prominent voice among MAHA advocates with millions of social media followers, posted that the Supreme Court rally would be “the largest food movement rally America has ever seen—to hold our government accountable for the corporate capture that is poisoning our children. Companies that are spraying our food with poison do not get immunity,” she wrote. (Link to this post.)
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