Search results: the corporation not me

The Supreme Court has just handed Bayer, which owns Monsanto, a “landmark victory.”  The decision may well overturn thousands of pending cases of people suing Bayer in the belief that the herbicide glyphosate (Roundup) caused them to develop non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

The Supreme Court’s ruling in Monsanto v. Durnell states its premise in the first paragraph:

Monsanto Company manufactures and distributes Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbicide designed to control weeds. The EPA has repeatedly evaluated glyphosate and repeatedly concluded that glyphosate is not likely to cause cancer. EPA’s assessment is shared by many other regulatory bodies around the world. In accordance with EPA’s view that glyphosate is not likely to cause cancer in humans, EPA has not required labels on glyphosate-based pesticides like Roundup to include a cancer warning.

Ergo: If the EPA says glyphosate is not carcinogenic, glyphosate is not carcinogenic.

An advocacy group, Protect Our Care, organized an emergency virtual event in Washington, DC, to condemn this “deeply misguided” decision. 

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of industry and the Trump administration by effectively granting Donald Trump’s big chemical industry donors blanket immunity from state-based liability claims involving the cancer-linked glyphosate chemical found in Roundup pesticides. In the administration’s latest betrayal of the MAHA movement, Trump’s DOJ filed an amicus brief in support of Monsanto – now owned by Bayer — and Trump’s Principal Deputy Solicitor General argued alongside the chemical maker in court. The decision is also a major affront to cancer survivors, now denied a pathway to damages for any injuries and financial costs they may have endured following exposure to glyphosate. 

At the event, Senator Cory Booker said:

Today’s a really a grievous day where the people of the United States saw that their Supreme Court corrupted by massive gifts from billionaires and people of interest in matters before them. A court that takes gifts, from RVs to tuition to lavish gifts, sided with the wealthy, powerful multinational corporation reversing years and years of precedent, dismissing ultimately effectively hundreds and hundreds, in fact 1000s of cases. They sided with the big multinational corporations against the people. Worse than that, compounding that, is a president who said he stood with the MAHA movement has betrayed that movement by now siding with the big corporations and those who are poisoning people in our country.

Why is this infuriating?

(1) The EPA relied on evidence developed by Monsanto: The EPA Relied on an Influential Glyphosate Study Even After Learning Monsanto Was a “Ghost Writer”

The US Environmental Protection Agency has known for nearly a decade that an influential 2013 scientific paper that concluded glyphosate is safe was actually ghostwritten by developer Monsanto. But the agency never informed the public and continued to rely on it, according to an EPA memo obtained by Mother Jones and revealed here for the first time.

(2)  Monsanto created its own evidence for the safety of glyphosate: Merchants of Poison: How Monsanto Sold the World on a Toxic Pesticide.

(3)  The Trump administration’s support of Bayer was aided by officials who came from Bayer’s law firms.

(4)  Getting glyphosate out of the food supply has been a stated objective of the MAHA movement and of HHS Secretary, RFK, Jr (although he later changed his stance)

One more thing: let’s not be taken in by President Trump’s executive order “advancing regenerative agriculture.”  This is really about biofuel production: “The new framework creates significant opportunities for America’s leading biofuel feedstock producers.”

By regenerative, this order refers to “cover crops, improved nutrient management, and conservation tillage—including no-till and reduced tillage.”

This is not my idea of the meaning of regenerative.  I much prefer the approach of Real Organic Project:   “is a farmer-led, soil-grown, pasture-raised WHOLE farm certification with labor protections. “

If a farm uses glyphosate, it’s not regenerative, not matter how much no-till it uses.

This one is not over yet.  At least one lawsuit has been filed to disclose how all this happened.

Stay tuned.

Farm Action has joined Vani Hari (the Food Babe) and other groups in this People vs. Poison rally.

Livestream it here.

The “poison” here is glyphosate, the potentially carcinoenic weed killer manufactured by Monsanto (now owned by Bayer) for use with genetically modified crops.

People vs. Poison says, “For decades they poisoned us for profit.  Now the people are fighting back”.

The rally is to let the Supreme Court know that there is widespread opposition to Monsanto’s position in the case, Monsanto v. Durnell.  The Court is hearing that case today.  As People vs. Poison explains,

Bayer – the foreign corporation that bought Monsanto – has paid over $10 billion to cancer victims linked to their weed killer Roundup (glyphosate). And there are still tens of thousands of cases pending.

Now Bayer wants to make sure they never have to pay again.

As described in The New Lede, 

Monsanto specifically is asking the Supreme Court to rule that under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), it cannot be held liable for failing to warn of a cancer risk if the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has not found such a risk exists and not required such a warning. FIFRA preempts any state requirements for such a cancer warning, the company argues.

Hundreds of groups have filed briefs on both sides of this case.

Trump’s Department of Justice filed one in support of Monsanto/Bayer.

Farm Action says

Monsanto, owned by Bayer, has mounted an aggressive campaign to secure immunity, leveraging its outsized market power to influence policymakers. The company faces thousands of lawsuits alleging its flagship product, Roundup, causes cancer. As Farm Action has documented, threats to pull Roundup from the market are a strategic pressure tactic, not a sign of impending crisis for the food and farm system…The coalition’s brief urges the Court to reject Monsanto’s argument and preserve the right to hold companies accountable when their products cause harm.

The rally is set for 9:00 this morning.  I will be interested to hear how it goes and whether the Supreme Court listens.

Commentary on what the rally is about

• Vani Hari’s video introducing the rally
• Vani Hari on the Reuters poll of public attitudes toward pesticides
• High Wire’s call for participation
• The Florida Surgeon General’s announcement of the rally agenda
• The New York Times’ analysis
• Vani Hari on the background of the Justice Department’s lawyer

One of the major items on HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s agenda has been to get toxic chemicals out of the food supply.

He’s not doing a good job on that.

Last week, I discussed his hypocritical backtracking on glyphosate.

Here, I mention three more:

DICAMBA

The Environmental Protection Agency has announced its reapproval of the pesticide dicamba as a spray on genetically engineered cotton and soybeans—despite how it drifts onto everyone else’s crops, whether growers want it or not.

Federal court decisions in 2020 and again in 2024 said such approvals were unlawful.

As the Center for Food Safety puts it,

Since its first approval in 2016, dicamba drift has damaged millions of acres of farmland and caused devastating damage to orchards, vegetable farms, home gardens, native plants, trees, and wildlife refuges across the country. Experts have found dicamba drift damage to be the worst of any herbicide in the history of U.S. agriculture. Yet the current approval provides even fewer protections from dicamba drift and damage than past approvals.

The first lawsuits have already been filed.

MERCURY

RFK Jr particularly wanted mercury out of fish.

Mercury gets into fish from two sources: volcanos and coal-burning power plants.  We can’t stop volcanos, but we sure could insist that coal-burning power plans clean up their emissions.

No such luck.

The New York Times writes: E.P.A. Plans to Loosen Mercury Rules for Coal Plants, Documents Show

In particular, the administration is taking steps to improve the economics of coal, the most polluting fossil fuel, by rolling back several regulations that would have made it much more expensive, if not impossible, for many coal plants to keep operating. Over the past nine months, the Energy Department has taken the extraordinary step of ordering eight coal-burning units that had been headed for retirement to stay open and keep running….the E.P.A. is arguing that it would reduce “unwarranted costs” for utilities that own and operate coal plants across the country.

COMMENT

To state the obvious, what all this tells us is that when public (or even personal) health comes up against corporate health, corporate profits win.

Make America Healthy Again?  American corporations, yes,  American citizens?  Not so much.

Nick Freudenberg and I wrote this op-ed for Civil Eats to start a discussion of what we think is a topic that needs it.

Can the Food Justice Movement and MAHA Find Common Ground? A cross-cutting food justice movement could improve our diets, food systems, and health.

By Marion Nestle and Nicholas Freudenberg

February 23, 2026

During the past year, the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement attracted positive public and media attention and provoked widespread discussion of the importance of diet to health. As academics who have written about and participated in food-and-diet advocacy for several decades, we have rarely witnessed such spirited public debate about the connections between the well-being of the American population and the system that produces the food we eat.

The food justice movement, which  emerged from the social movements of the 1960s, has long focused on reforming the food system and improving diets. Organizations  such as HEAL Food Alliance, Community Food Advocates, Food Chain Workers Alliance, and the National Black Food and Justice Alliance have fought for broad goals such as building more collective power to improve food policies and systems, changing food and farming practices to reduce pollution and carbon emissions, and making healthier food choices available to people of color. Together with local campaigns, these national organizations have also worked to win more specific changes such as making school lunches healthier and free for all children and increasing job benefits for low-wage food workers.

While the food justice and MAHA movements hold many of the same goals, they differ deeply in other ways. We believe food-justice advocates could benefit from a clearer understanding of where their objectives and approaches overlap but also diverge from those of MAHA, as well as a more defined strategy for how to interact with the movement and decide which MAHA messages to amplify and which to subject to public debate.

“Successful movements build power by winning over new constituencies in working toward common goals; the potential for forging a shared action plan is worth pursuing.”

What do food justice advocates and MAHA supporters have in common? Both believe that the current U.S. food system and the diets it produces contribute to poor health, especially as compared to other countries. Both believe that the profit-seeking and market practices of food and beverage producers, fast food chains, and food marketers actively promote chronic disease, obesity, premature death, and preventable illness.

Both agree that food companies must change their marketing practices, especially to children, and limit chemicals, dyes, and additives in food products. Both also agree that improvements in the rules for school food and federal food assistance programs can lead to improvements in diets and health.

How do the movements differ? Whereas food-justice activists stress the need for collective and public action and make reducing inequities in healthy food access a top priority, MAHA followers emphasize the importance of individual and parental responsibility for diet and health, even for the disadvantaged. While the social justice side views profit-driven markets as a key cause of the nation’s food and health problems, most MAHA leaders (if not its rank-and-filers) endorse market-based solutions to food and health problems.

The two movements also disagree on what constitutes evidence for changing policy. MAHA distrusts established science and often rejects the scientific process that most independent researchers and food justice advocates believe constitutes the basis for policy. By relying on “mom influencers” rather than scientists, MAHA adherents show their belief in the power of narratives of personal experience. And by using  evidence gathered by non-mainstream investigators, they tap into public distrust of established science.

Fifteen years ago, the food writer Michael Pollan wrote that food movements of the day were a “big lumpy tent”  in which the various factions beneath it sometimes worked at cross-purposes. We recognize that this remains true for the food justice movement. It is also true for the MAHA movement.

Today’s MAHA movement includes activist parents fighting to improve school food and get rid of pesticides, wellness industry influencers and entrepreneurs like Calley and Casey Means, anti-vaxxers, and, of course, President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Its contributors include major corporations and right-wing leaders.

In 2024, the  largest contributor to the group’s super-PAC, the MAHA Alliance,  was Elon Musk and his SpaceX, together contributing $6 million—and this year the MAHA Center, headed by Tony Lyons, a major financial supporter of RFK Jr.’s presidential campaign, funded the controversial  Mike Tyson “Eat Real Food” Super Bowl ad for a reported $8 million. Whether the private interests of wellness entrepreneurs like the Means, and billionaires like Musk, will take precedence over the MAHA mom influencers remains to be seen.

This heterogeneity poses both an opportunity and a challenge to those seeking alliances, raising the question: Is it possible to build on commonalities given the deep differences and this era’s sectarianism and polarization? We believe the food justice movement should pursue this chance for new partnerships, despite the risks in this path. Successful movements build power by winning over new constituencies in working toward common goals; the potential for forging a shared action plan is worth pursuing. To do so, we suggest six actions for food-justice advocates.

1. Talk to MAHA activists.The groups should create forums and spaces where they can discuss commonalities and differences openly without insulting or disrespecting those who differ. Open discussion is a prerequisite for exploring the possibility of shared goals.
2. Argue with respect.We acknowledge the risks of attempting to work with and win over MAHA supporters. In some cases, we will have to agree to disagree. In others, we will forcefully debate in public settings. In all situations, we must not lose sight of common goals or conflicting values.  By listening carefully to MAHA arguments, food justice proponents can better understand its supporters’ worldviews and engage them in finding opportunities for joint action.
3. Develop a common agenda of legal and regulatory reforms. The two movements’ shared distrust of corporations—and the legal and political systems in which Big Business exerts undue influence—present important opportunities for winning public support. Can the two groups establish clear goals for legal and regulatory reforms in food, agriculture, pesticides, and other industries? These could include strategies to reduce theconflicts of interestthat enable corporations to profit from public harm and promote new evidence-based and public-serving transparency rules for businesses, universities, and government. One example—agreeing that government has the right to set policies to keep toxic substances out of our food supply and the duty to enforce these policies—would be a big step forward.
4. Provide a clear rationale for a focus on food equity. A food system that offers healthy food to the well-off but not others can never make America healthier. To enlist MAHA followers in making the entire food system more equitable will require winning their support for reducing current socioeconomic, racial/ethnic, and gender inequities in access to healthy food and other basic human needs. It will require proposing they consider the “sum of us” argumentthat, for example, stronger food regulations and healthier supermarket food benefits all of us, not just the most disadvantaged.
5. Encourage MAHA followers to question the moral commitments and policies of MAGA and its leaders. The cruelty, corruption, disregard for science, and disdain for democracy that characterize MAGA leaders (but not necessarily MAHA followers) dismay Americans of varied political beliefs.

Last week, President Trump issued an executive order promoting production of glyphosate (Roundup), the widely used herbicide, claiming the weedkiller was needed to protect national economic and food security. Signaling the fragility of the MAHA/MAGA alliance, Vani Hari, an influential MAHA grassroots leader, told The Guardian, “This executive order reads like it was drafted in a chemical company boardroom. Calling it ‘national defense’ while expanding protections for toxic products is a dangerous misdirection. Real national security is protecting American families, farmers, and children.”

MAHA followers could also examine the conflicts of interests of their own wellness-industry aligned leaders. A MAHA/MAGA alliance is not inevitable. By finding specific and appealing ways to win over MAHA followers who genuinely want a healthier nation and food system, the food justice movement may help to build the political power needed for transformative changes.

6. Study successful MAHA initiatives. MAHA’s use of personal stories and narratives, its capture of public attention, its acceptance of internal differences in opinion, and its successes in rural communities are accomplishments worth emulating. MAHA has been strikingly effective in bringing public attention to our nation’s food system and food policies. Finding ways to capture the bully pulpit of public attention without ceding to the pulpits of bullies could provide lessons for other current political struggles. The food justice movement can extract relevant lessons from these experiences.

In our view, the prospect of a cross-cutting food justice movement that brings in new supporters and builds political power to win new measures to improve diets, food systems, and health is a risk worth exploring. At best, the food justice movement might open new doors for alliances between MAHA followers and activists in movements for environmental justice, women’s health, or universal health care.

Given the different worldviews of MAHA and food justice advocates, we are under no illusion that this process will inevitably or easily lead to meaningful changes in diet, food policy, or health. But we do believe that silence due to fear of criticism or conflict wins nothing. With eyes wide open, we invite others to join in the exploration of new principled alliances.

I wish USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins would use less inflammatory language in making her announcements.  They sound right out of George Orwell’s 1984—or the 1950s McCarthy era—and do not speak well for American democracy.

Let’s start with the banner at the top of USDA websites.  If nothing else, it violates the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from partisan public statements.

Next, take a look at ICYMI: Secretary Rollins Pens Newsweek Op-Ed “Theatrics Don’t Feed the Hungry” [my emphasis]

What began as a program for the neediest Americans, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly referred to as food stamps, has exploded to serve one in every eight Americans. The food stamp rolls have not only skyrocketed due to eligibility loopholes and regulatory boondoggles—each allowing for millions of work-capable adults with school age children to participate—but a program that has recently become a “leverage” point for Democrats in their self-inflicted government shutdown…So, the truth has revealed itself. Democrats’ support for programs like SNAP is now reduced to cynical control over people’s lives.

Instead of focusing on reopening the government and keeping programs like SNAP and WIC functioning…Senate Democrats are holding firm on propping up failed government programs with billions in health care subsidies that benefit corporations over people. Not to mention exposing their far left agenda items: illegal aliens, open borders, gender mutilation and more…It is unconscionable.

I agree on “unconscionable.”

On Monday, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins’ filed this comment on X:

@POTUS is doing everything he can to help our most vulnerable mothers and babies while Radical Left Democrats continue to obstruct.

Name-calling does not help.

Red-baiting does not help.

Civility might.

I.  Darius Mozaffarian, a nutrition professor at Tufts University, has an editorial in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition:“The Dietary Guidelines for Americans—is the evidence bar too low or too high?”

He writes about an analysis of the systematic literature reviews SRs) that form the basis of science-based decisions in the guidelines.  His comments gives an insight into the Dietary Guidelines process worth seeing.

For the 2025–2030 DGAC, I served as a peer reviewer for the SR on UPFs…I felt that the SR’s question, design, and planned methods were appropriate, but that its implementation and conclusions were weakened by important deviations from these standards. For example, contradicting its stated eligibility criteria, the SR included numerous studies that did not appropriately or adequately define or assess UPF. Following inclusion of such heterogeneous studies, the SR concluded that the scientific evidence on UPF was limited due to many studies having serious concerns around exposure misclassification as well as evaluating dietary patterns not directly varying in amounts of UPF. This demonstrated a circular and dismaying reasoning: the SR included studies it should not have that had heterogeneous and poorly characterized assessments of UPF, and then concluded that heterogeneous and poorly characterized assessments of UPF limited the strength of the evidence.

He observes:

Most importantly, the DGA and SR requirements make clear that guiding Americans toward a healthier diet is an unfair fight from the start. The food industry can do almost anything it wishes to our food, combining diverse ingredients, additives, and processing methods with virtually no oversight or required evidence for long-term safety  In contrast, the DGAs and other federal agencies can only make recommendations to avoid certain foods or limit certain manufacturing methods when there is extensive, robust, and consistent evidence for harm. In this severely imbalanced playing field, industry wins again and again.

II.  Senator Bernie Sanders posted on Facebook Sanders Statement on How to Make America Healthy Again.  Among other issues, he’s taking on the food industry.

Reform the food industry. Large food corporations should not make record-breaking profits addicting children to the processed foods which make them overweight and prone to diabetes and other diseases. As a start, we must ban junk food ads targeted to kids and put strong warning labels on products high in sugar, salt and saturated fat. Longer term, we can rebuild rural America with family farms that are producing healthy, nutritious food.

III.  California Governor Gavin Newsom “issues executive order to crack down on ultra-processed foods and further investigate food dyes.”

The food we eat shouldn’t make us sick with disease or lead to lifelong consequences. California has been a leader for years in creating healthy and delicious school meals, and removing harmful ingredients and chemicals from food. We’re going to work with the industry, consumers and experts to crack down on ultra-processed foods, and create a healthier future for every Californian.

Comment

Mozaffarian offers these opinions despite disclosing financial ties to food companies.  Sanders is a welcome addition to the handful of legislators concerned about food issues.  Newsom is making it easier for other states to take similar steps.

Maybe there’s a glimmer of hope for coalition building among advocates for healthier food systems.  Maybe this really is a movement!

How’s that for a cheery thought for 2025.  Happy new year everyone!

Thanks to everyone who flooded my mailbox with this piece from The Guardian: She was fired after not endorsing Splenda-filled salads to people with diabetes. Why?

According to a lawsuit {Elizabeth] Hanna recently filed against the ADA, the organization – which endorses recipes and food plans on its websiteand on the websites of “partner” food brands – tried to get her to greenlight recipes that she believedflew in the face of the ADA’s mission. These included recipes like a “cucumber and onion salad” made with a third of a cup of Splenda granulated artificial sweetener, “autumnal sheet-pan veggies” with a quarter cup of Splenda monk fruit sweetener and a “cranberry almond spinach salad” with a quarter cup of Splenda monkfruit sweetener.

Guess which company gave more than $1m to the ADA in 2022? Splenda.

I also was sent an email from Georgia Warren, the  Guardian’s Interim membership editor: The link between investigative reporting, some nightmarish recipes and the diabetes epidemic.

Why would a public health charity promote a product that its own science shows contributes to the disease it is fighting? Well, as Neil Barsky reported for us this week, the ADA took more than $1m from Splenda in 2022 – and then fired their chief nutritionist when, according to a lawsuit she recently filed, she refused to sign-off on the Splenda-based recipes that her bosses wanted the ADA to publicly endorse.

Neil – creator of our new series ‘Death by diabetes: America’s preventable epidemic’ – told me…“The ADA has bought into a system that requires them to raise money from corporations to fund their research. I don’t for a second doubt that every single person who works there cares about people with diabetes and wants to do the right thing, but being beholden to these groups distorts your judgment.”

..And what else is pharma funding? The ADA. The organization – whose guidance doctors rely on when treating their diabetes patients – boasts a $100m annual budget. Between 2017 and 2024, pharmaceutical and device manufacturers contributed over $134m to the organization – or roughly 20% of its total funding.

Comment: The ADA has long appeared to be in thrall the the drug industry.  I well remember the talk I gave at one of its annual conventions years ago.  I was one of two speakers about diet and diabetes (the other was a session on the role of sugar in diabetes sponsored by Coca-Cola—truly you can’t make this stuff up).  The other talks, hundreds of them, were about drugs.  At that time, the ADA said virtually nothing about diet on its website.

It’s gotten much better.  Here’s what it says about carbohydrates:

• Try to eat less of these: refined, highly processed carbohydrate foods and those with added sugar. These include sugary drinks like soda, sweet tea and juice, refined grains like white bread, white rice and sugary cereal, and sweets and snack foods like cake, cookies, candy and chips.

And here’s what the ADA says about artificial sweeteners:

It’s also important to know that at this time, there is no clear evidence to suggest that using sugar substitutes will help with managing blood sugar or weight or improving cardiometabolic health in the long run. So here’s the bottom line:

• Sugar substitutes are effective alternatives to sugar for some people, but not a perfect fit for all—it’s a personal choice.
• If you’re looking to reduce your intake of sugar or sugar substitutes, start slowly. For example, start by replacing one soda or juice with water or a no-calorie drink at a time.
• Water will always be a great choice! If you start feeling yourself get bored with just water, you can always spruce it up with fruits or herbs like this sparkling strawberry mint infused water.

And, finally for now, here are the ADA’s corporate sponsors, and its national sponsors.

Conflicted?  Sure looks like it.

José Tenorio.  School Food Politics in Mexico: The Corporatization of Obesity and Healthy Eating Policies.  Routledge, 2023.  

I was asked for a blurb for this one:

From first-hand observations and deep research, José Tenorio makes it clear that school food in Mexico is about much more than feeding hungry kids; it’s about how food corporations have taken advantage of social inequalities to replace native food traditions with less healthful but profitable products.  School food politics, indeed!

This book may seem specialized, but it is a useful case study in the politics of school food—not confined to the United States, apparently.

Mexico leads the way in efforts to promote healthier diets.  It has  excellent dietary guidelines.   It also has warning labels on food products (see my post on these), soda taxes, a ban on trans fats, and other measures.

Mexico’s schools do not provide meals for kids in schools.  They sell foods at canteens.

The country set nutrition standards for foods sold in schools in 2011, but compliance is not great.

Public health and food advocacy groups support laws to ban unhealthy foods and drinks from schools.  Despite formidible industry opposition, this may actually happen.

This book provides evidence for why it should.