Bayer and other pesticide giants are pushing for state laws that would block lawsuits against them, stripping Americans of their right to hold these corporations accountable for poisoning our farms, food, and families. State-based action alerts!
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THE TOPLINE
- Bayer and other chemical giants are lobbying for state laws that would shield them from lawsuits, preventing victims of pesticide exposure from seeking justice.
- EPA relies on outdated, industry-funded studies to approve pesticides, prioritizing corporate interests over independent scientific findings.
Imagine being diagnosed with cancer after years of working with pesticides, or eating pesticide-laden food—only to find out you can’t seek justice from the company responsible—even if it was blatantly apparent the company was fully aware of the cancer risks but failed to tell the public to protect its own profits. That’s the future Bayer/Monsanto and other chemical giants are trying to create with a multi-state lobbying campaign aimed at securing legal immunity from lawsuits. If these bills pass, chemical companies will have free rein to poison Americans without consequence.
Bayer’s Legal Escape Hatch
The cat is out of the bag: glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, the most widely used herbicide in the world, is toxic. Bayer has already paid out more than $10 billion to settle lawsuits from plaintiffs claiming their cancer was caused by exposure to glyphosate. Courts have repeatedly found the evidence linking glyphosate to cancer compelling, and internal documents have exposed how Monsanto (now owned by Bayer) manipulated science and public opinion for decades. But instead of reforming their equally toxic business practices, these companies are taking a different approach: making it illegal for victims to sue them in the first place.
Currently, states including Georgia, North Dakota, Iowa, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Florida are considering bills that would provide pesticide manufacturers with blanket immunity from product liability lawsuits. The timing and locations of these bills speak volumes—these are the very states where glyphosate and other herbicides are heavily used and where future lawsuits are most likely to emerge.
Follow the Money
The push for these bills isn’t coming from concerned farmers or public health advocates—it’s being bankrolled by the very companies set to benefit. Big Chem has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into PACs and campaign contributions to state lawmakers, with dozens of lobbyists working in these states to get this over the finish line.
And let’s not forget that foreign corporations are major players in this game. Syngenta, owned by ChemChina—a company linked to the Chinese military—is among the biggest beneficiaries of these immunity bills. If these laws pass, American farmers and families will lose their right to sue, while Chinese and German chemical giants rake in the profits.
Do You Really Trust the EPA to Protect You?
One of the main arguments behind these bills is that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has already approved pesticide labels—so why should companies be liable?
The fact is that the EPA does not conduct its own safety studies on chemicals. Instead, it relies on industry research to evaluate chemicals—an obvious conflict of interest that mirrors what happens in the drug industry with the FDA. It’s no surprise, then, that the agency’s track record on glyphosate is abysmal. The most important actions taken by the EPA have been to keep glyphosate on the market and to maintain that there is “insufficient evidence” linking glyphosate to “any human diseases.”
The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), on the other hand, classifies glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans,” and the balance of evidence from years of research makes it evident that glyphosate does, in fact, cause cancer.
The agency tasked with protecting public health is simply rubber-stamping industry claims and failing to act on independent science. These immunity bills would make that rubber stamp the final word.
Sell the Cancer, Sell the Cure
But it gets worse still. Bayer now not only produces glyphosate but also makes drugs to treat the cancers its products are causing. This is the same company that used to sell heroin as a cough suppressant and, in the 1980s, knowingly sold HIV-contaminated hemophilia medication. Why would anyone believe Bayer suddenly has the public’s best interest at heart? Especially given Bayer’s dark history as part of the German I.G. Farben conglomerate that included the company Degesch that made the Zyklon B used in the Holocaust gas chambers.
Legislators Are Waking Up—But We Must Act
Fortunately, lawmakers in several states have already rejected this outrageous overreach. Bills in Wyoming, Montana, and Mississippi have stalled because they’ve been recognized for what they are: a handout to foreign chemical corporations at the expense of American farmers, families, and future generations.
But Bayer and its allies aren’t giving up. They’re continuing to push these bills in statehouses across the country, hoping to quietly slip them into law before the public notices.
If these bills pass, pesticide companies will have total immunity—even if they lie to the EPA, even if they hide critical health information, even if their products cause deadly diseases. We can’t let them get away with it.
If your state is listed below, click the link to take action to oppose these terrible bills!
State based action alerts:
