This article was originally shared by The Organic and Non-GMO Report.
Bayer announced in April that it has filed a petition for writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court, claiming that “failure-to-warn” lawsuits brought against the multinational corporation warrant the court’s review and resolution. The agribusiness giant petitioned the country’s top court after Iowa’s pesticide labeling bill didn’t survive the 2025 legislative session. The bill would have protected pesticide and herbicide manufacturers from claims that their products’ labels failed to disclose potential health risks, as long as their labeling adhered to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules.
The EPA, in its 2020 review of glyphosate, found that the pesticide carried no risks of concern to human health when used in accordance with its current label and was unlikely to be a human carcinogen. Bayer, which has faced thousands of lawsuits linking cases of Non Hodgkin lymphoma cancer to Roundup, is now seeking paths to pass federal policy that would shield them from such lawsuits. The company paid more than $10 billion in 2020 to settle suits of more than 95,000 cases related to claims that the product’s labels didn’t warn of potential cancer. In late May, a Missouri Court of Appeals upheld a $611 million judgment that Roundup causes cancer.
“Overwhelmingly, Americans know and feel deeply that a multi-billion-dollar multinational corporation does not need protection from our lawmakers,” said Michaelyn Mankel, a Des Moines-based Iowa Food and Water Watch organizer. “Lawmakers need to be protecting our rights to seek damages when we’re harmed.”
Source: Des Moines Register