Millions of American users of glyphosate-based Roundup have likely assumed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would never have approved the pesticide unless it was safe.
But the science-based truth has never been as cut and dried as the EPA and Bayer, which bought Roundup maker Monsanto in 2018, have made it sound.
In a series of trials across the country, juries — and the public –— have learned that despite the safety claims by Bayer and the EPA, hundreds of studies by independent scientists link glyphosate herbicides to serious health harms, including cancer.
Even though Bayer maintains that its glyphosate products are safe and not carcinogenic, the company has thus far agreed to pay out more than $10 billion in settlement costs to tens of thousands of glyphosate users suffering from non-Hodgkin lymphoma and thousands of lawsuits remain.
In an effort to block further litigation, the chemical giant has turned its focus to getting federal and state legislation passed to block Roundup users from suing the company for damages.
According to a recent Washington Post article, Bayer helped draft language for a legislative measure that would limit the types of lawsuits brought by Roundup users.
That measure is included in the U.S. House of Representatives version of the 2024 Farm Bill, which is slated to be finalized later this year. The company has also been pushing lawmakers in several states to pass similar measures.
Key to Bayer’s messaging to legislators is that, because glyphosate is EPA-approved, research showing its harms should be rejected. But the process by which the EPA approved glyphosate decades ago has never been reassuring to independent scientists such as myself.
EPA scientists conducting initial assessments of glyphosate in the 1980s discovered several mice dosed with the pesticide developed rare kidney tumors, prompting the scientists to confirm the pesticide’s link to cancer.
Then the EPA’s pesticides office did what it often does: It ignored the troubling research and the recommendation of its own scientists and approved the pesticide without acknowledging its documented link to cancer.
Even the EPA’s subsequent assessments and reapprovals of the pesticide, required every 15 years, have been plagued by questionable science. In 2022 a federal appeals court ruled that the agency’s finding that glyphosate has no link to cancer violated its own cancer guidelines and “was not supported by substantial evidence.”
Now it’s these problematic EPA endorsements that Bayer insists should be the basis for putting limits on the lawsuits glyphosate users can file.
Keep reading
Hellbound and Down 