Currently browsing posts about: Glyphosate

Here’s one place where the MAHA and Food Justice movements agree: on glyphosate.  Here is a post from thefoodbabe (@Vani Hari):

LOBBYING

This refers to U.S. Right to Know’s Bayer lobby tracker.

Federal disclosures show Bayer reported spending $9.19 million on lobbying Congress and the executive branch in 2025, which includes fees paid to at least 13 outside lobbying firms. As of the fourth quarter of 2025, 45 lobbyists were registered to lobby for Bayer under the Lobbying Disclosure Act.

The tracker comes from Stacy Malkan’s reporting: Tracing Bayer’s ties to power in Trump’s Washington; From lobby firms to top officials, a look at how Bayer built access and secured favors

The White House invokes the Defense Production Act to guarantee supplies of elemental phosphorus and glyphosate-based herbicides. Regulators reapprove dicamba, a Bayer herbicide twice blocked by federal courts, and clear the way for new pesticides containing toxic, persistent PFAS “forever” chemicals.

And the U.S. Justice Department urges the U.S. Supreme Court to erase billions of dollars of Bayer’s liability for its glyphosate-based Roundup weed killer – placing the weight of the executive branch on the side of a foreign company against thousands of Americans who say Bayer’s products caused their cancers.

Over the past year, the administration under President Donald J. Trump has delivered a string of victories to Bayer, the German agrichemical and pharmaceutical giant that merged with Monsanto in 2018 to become the world’s leading manufacturer of genetically modified seeds and pesticides.

REVOLVING DOOR

The term refers to government regulators taking jobs with corporations and vice versa.  US Right to Know reports:

The Trump administration yesterday handed Bayer another win, urging the Supreme Court in a new brief to side with the German pesticide company in a high-stakes legal case that could wipe out thousands of cancer lawsuits and potentially billions of dollars in liability tied to glyphosate-based Roundup weed killer.

Three out of nine U.S. officials who signed the brief previously worked for law firms that have represented Bayer, raising questions about whether the Trump administration is providing special favors and benefits to Bayer and siding with a foreign corporation against Americans with cancer.

COMMENT

It’s pretty amazing what Bayer gets away with.  Despite Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s insistence that glyphosate is carcinogenic and needs to get out of the food supply, he has now backtracked on that.  In his backtracking statement, he says:

Unfortunately, our agricultural system depends heavily on these chemicals. The U.S. represents 4% of the world’s population, yet we use roughly 25% of its pesticides. If these inputs disappeared overnight, crop yields would fall, food prices would surge, and America would experience a massive loss of farms even beyond what we are witnessing today. The consequences would be disastrous.

This sounds like he’s looking out for farmers.  But glyphosate is used in industrial agriculture, not small- and medium-sized family farms, and certainly not in organic and regenerative farms.  As an herbicide, it’s used on feed for animals and fuel for automobiles.  It’s also used for drying wheat and oats.  It should not be used for food for people at all.

Why is this still allowed?  The Bayer Lobby Tracker makes that clear.

RFK Jr may have lied to the Senate about vaccines, but it is now evident that he also lied to his supporters about getting toxic chemicals out of the food supply.

Let’s start here: 

Well, it wasn’t his USDA (he’s Secretary of HHS), apparently.

Now we have President Trump’s executive order: PROMOTING THE NATIONAL DEFENSE BY ENSURING AN ADEQUATE SUPPLY OF ELEMENTAL PHOSPHORUS AND GLYPHOSATE-BASED HERBICIDES.

There is no direct one-for-one chemical alternative to glyphosate-based herbicides.  Lack of access to glyphosate-based herbicides would critically jeopardize agricultural productivity, adding pressure to the domestic food system, and may result in a transition of cropland to other uses due to low productivity.  Given the profit margins growers currently face, any major restrictions in access to glyphosate-based herbicides would result in economic losses for growers and make it untenable for them to meet growing food and feed demands.

Never mind the multiple independent research studies and judgment by cancer experts of the World Health Organization that glyphosate is potentially carcinogenic (see account in The New Lede).

Never mind that Bayer, which bought Monsanto and now owns glyphosate, just said it would put $7.5 billion into settling lawsuits over it.

Never mind that glyphosate is in everything, including bread.

Hypocrisy alert: RFK Jr now says he supports the president’s decision on glyphosate.

Resources

• The first piece of proposed legislation to overturn this, the ‘No Immunity for Glyphosate Act.’  Want to take bets on how far it gets?
• Fact sheet from the Center for Biological Diversity

And now, RFK Jr’s defense posted on X:

Unfortunately, our agricultural system depends heavily on these chemicals. The U.S. represents 4% of the world’s population, yet we use roughly 25% of its pesticides. If these inputs disappeared overnight, crop yields would fall, food prices would surge, and America would experience a massive loss of farms even beyond what we are witnessing today. The consequences would be disastrous.

Disastrous for whom, exactly?

The journal, Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, has retracted a major paper, one that “had a significant impact on regulatory decision-making regarding glyphosate and Roundup for decades.”  The now-retracted paper had found the herbicide, glyphosate, to pose no health risk to humans.

Quotes from the retraction notice:

• Concerns were raised regarding the authorship of this paper, validity of the research findings in the context of misrepresentation of the contributions by the authors and the study sponsor and potential conflicts of interest of the authors.
• The article’s conclusions regarding the carcinogenicity of glyphosate are solely based on unpublished studies from Monsanto, which have failed to demonstrate tumorigenic potential.
• The authors did not include multiple other long-term chronic toxicity and carcinogenicity studies…[although] they are aware of other studies, that were unpublished and not available.
• Litigation in the United States revealed correspondence from Monsanto suggesting that the authors of the article were not solely responsible for writing its content…employees of Monsanto may have contributed to the writing of the article without proper acknowledgment as co-authors.
• The authors may have received financial compensation from Monsanto for their work on this article, which was not disclosed as such.
• The lack of clarity regarding which parts of the article were authored by Monsanto employees creates uncertainty about the integrity of the conclusions drawn.
• It is unclear how much of the conclusions of the authors were influenced by external contributions of Monsanto without proper acknowledgments.

The now retracted paper: Safety Evaluation and Risk Assessment of the Herbicide Roundup and Its Active Ingredient, Glyphosate, for Humans. Gary M. Williams, Robert Kroes, and Ian C. Munro.  Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology 31, 117–165 (2000).  doi:10.1006/rtph.1999.1371

This paper exonerates glyphosate and its main metabolites from any harm other than eye irritation.  It says [Note: this is not necessarily my view] they:

• Are poorly absorbed.
• Are eliminated essentially unmetabolized.
• Do not penetrate skin.
• Do not bioaccumulate.
• Are not toxic.
• Do not damage DNA.
• Do not cause mutations.
• Do not cause cancer.
• Do not cause developmental problems.
• Do not affect fertility.

The paper concludes: “Roundup herbicide does not result in adverse effects on development, reproduction, or endocrine systems in humans and other
mammals…Roundup herbicide does not pose a health risk to humans.”

The authors disclosure statement: “…we thank the toxicologists and other scientists at Monsanto who made significant contributions to the development of exposure assessments and through many other discussions. The authors were given complete access to toxicological information contained in the great number of laboratory studies and archival material at Monsanto in St. Louis, Missouri, and elsewhere…We also acknowledge the participation and assistance of Douglass W. Bryant and Cantox Health Sciences International for scientific and logistical support in the preparation of the final manuscript.”

COMMENT

Producers of genetically modified seeds, particularly Monsanto (now owned by Bayer), have long argued that the glyphosate herbicide used with these seeds is safe and harmless to human health.  This now-retracted paper supported that argument and made it difficult to argue otherwise.  When people made ill by high glyphosate exposure filed lawsuits, lawyers were able to read internal Monsanto documents.  These exposed the role of Monsanto in manipulating this research.  Carey Gillam discusses one case in her book, The Monsanto Papers: Deadly Secrets, Corporate Corruption, and One Man’s Search for Justice, which I reviewed here.

The retraction notice suggests that the journal editors were convinced that

• The authors cherry-picked the data
• Were paid to write the paper
• Worked with Monsanto to write the paper

Obviously, none of this was disclosed—reason enough for retraction.

Better late than never.  Gillam published her book in 2021. 

Next, how about a ban?  The EPA says 280 million pounds of glyphosate are used annually in the United States.

Wouldn’t we all be better off without it?

Resource

Thanks to Tom Philpott for sending this: NYT’s Pro-Big Ag Pundit Gets It Right on Manure, But Misses the Mark on Herbicides

I saw this headline in the Washington Post: Bayer lobbies Congress to help fight lawsuits tying Roundup to cancer.

The biotech giant Bayer has lobbied Congress over the past year to advance legislation that could shield the company from billions of dollars in lawsuits, part of a national campaign to defeat claims that its weed killer Roundup causes cancer in people who use it frequently…By erecting new legal barriers to bringing those cases, Bayer seeks to prevent sizable payouts to plaintiffs while sparing itself from a financial crisis.

Apparently, the House version of the Farm Bill contains a provision—drafted by Bayer—to protect the company against further lawsuits claimng that the Monsanto herbicide glyphosate (Roundup) causes non-Hodgkins lymphoma and other cancers.

Bayer helped craft that measure, then circulated it among lawmakers to rally support before later pushing the House to add it to the farm bill, the people familiar with the effort said.

Bayer also

has sought to reshape federal, state and local laws, hoping to erect a blockade against future lawsuits. Over the past year, the company has helped advance bills in Idaho, Iowa and Missouri, according to state lobbying records, each of which could effectively immunize the company against allegations that its chemicals can cause cancer. Top company executives have promised to push these policies more aggressively — and in a wider array of states — in the coming legislative year.

Comment

In 2018, Bayer bought Monsanto for $63 billion.  What was it thinking?  Lawsuits based on the health effects of glyphsate were already well underway, with the courts sometimes awarding plaintiffs millions of dollars in damages.

Thousands of such lawsuits are in play.  Bayer admits to 170,000 in total.  Bayer settled a lot of them for billions, but at least a third of these claims are still unresolved.

Bayer says glyphosate is not carcinogenic and the Environmental Protection Agency agrees.  But the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, identifies glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic.”

Juries, appalled by evidence that Monsanto had hidden evidence of harm, sometimes rule in favor of plaintiffs.

Bayer’s stock prices have taken a hit.

It’s not clear whether the company will survive.

Bayer’s greed about monopolizing seed stocks brought on this problem.

The Farm Bill is not the place to solve it.

Bayer does not deserve this level of protection.

Food corporations should not be writing the Farm Bill.

Resource

Civil Eats did an investigation of Bayer’s legal strategies.  See this report here.

We grow lots of corn in the U.S.

• Most of it is genetically modified, meaning that the potentially carcinogenic herbicide, glyphosate, gets dumped all over it in enormous quanitities
• 40% of the corn is used to produce ethanol; this provides an incentive to grow corn in places where water is limited or land is poor.

One argument in favor of using corn for ethanol is that using ethanol for fuel reduces climate change.

But recent reports suggest that using corn for ethanol is a net loss for the planet.

• Jessica Fu writes in The Counter. Corn ethanol was supposed to help the climate. Instead, its production may have made things worse:  Environmental advocates have long warned that incentivizing ethanol production could be a net loss for the planet. A new study suggests that those fears may be well-founded.  Read more
• Virginia Gewin in Civil Eats writes: How Corn Ethanol for Biofuel Fed Climate Change
• C. Jones points out: Iowa is addicted to cornography, but we would all be better off using electric power.
• Dr. Jonathan Foley concludes:   It’s Time to Rethink America’s Corn System: As a crop, corn is highly productive, flexible and successful. As a system, the same is not true.

Comment: Growing corn for ethanol is makes no sense at all.  It’s bad for land and water.  Dumping glyphosate also makes no sense.  We need an agricultural policy that promotes agroecology/regenerative agriculture/sustainability, and that promotes the health of everyone involved in production and consumption.

Thanks to Tufts Professor Sheldon Krimsky for sending me this gem.

Residues of glyphosate in food and dietary exposure.  John L. Vicini,Pamela K. Jensen,Bruce M. Young,John T. Swarthout, Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety.  First published: 16 August 2021.

The study: A review of existing data on amounts of glyphosate residues in foods as compared to maximum limits or tolerances set by European or American regulatory agencies.  The study also reviewed data on levels of glyphosate in urine samples.

Conclusion: “Exposures to glyphosate from food are well below the amount that can be ingested daily over a lifetime with a reasonable certainty of no harm.”

Week killers do their job but also cause problems: illness among people exposed to them (especially farm workers), induction of resistance, and killing weeds in places they are not supposed to be.

Illnesses: The most well known is the non-Hodgkins lymphoma associated with use of glyphosate (Roundup).

Weed resistance: This chart from the University of Minnesota shows the number of species resistant to various kinds of herbicides from 1955 to 2020.  GMO crops resistant to glyphosate were first approved in 1994.

Herbicide drift:  This has been a  particular problem with the weed killer dicamba used with GMO corn and soybeans.  It has a particular problem: it drifts, and does so inconveniently over organically produced crops that are not weed resistant, thereby killing them and making organic farmers extremely unhappy but without recourse, apparently.

Now an investigative report from In These Times demonstrates how Monsanto and BASF, the makers of dicamba, knew perfectly well that it drifted and would cause extensive damage, but sold it anyway.

Exec­u­tives from Mon­san­to and BASF, a Ger­man chem­i­cal com­pa­ny that worked with Mon­san­to to launch the sys­tem, knew their dicam­ba weed killers would cause large-scale dam­age to fields across the Unit­ed States but decid­ed to push them on unsus­pect­ing farm­ers any­way, in a bid to cor­ner the soy­bean and cot­ton markets.

The investigation found:

• [Mon­san­to’s] own research showed dicam­ba mixed with oth­er her­bi­cides was more like­ly to cause dam­age. The com­pa­ny also pre­vent­ed inde­pen­dent sci­en­tists from con­duct­ing their own tests and declined to pay for stud­ies that would poten­tial­ly give them more infor­ma­tion about dicamba’s real-world impact.

• Although adver­tised as help­ing out cus­tomers, the com­pa­nies’ inves­ti­ga­tions of drift inci­dents were designed to lim­it their lia­bil­i­ty, find oth­er rea­sons for the dam­age and nev­er end with pay­outs to farm­ers. For exam­ple, BASF told pes­ti­cide appli­ca­tors that some­times it is not safe to spray even if fol­low­ing the label to the let­ter, plac­ing lia­bil­i­ty square­ly on the applicators.

As for recourse:

A fed­er­al court banned the her­bi­cide ear­li­er this year, but the EPA rein­stat­ed dicam­ba for five more years in October.

Ear­li­er this year, a fed­er­al jury sided with a Mis­souri peach farmer who sued the com­pa­nies for dri­ving his orchard out of busi­ness. The jury award­ed Bill Bad­er $15 mil­lion for his loss­es and $250 mil­lion in puni­tive dam­ages designed to pun­ish Bay­er. Bay­er and BASF are appeal­ing the ver­dict. The puni­tive dam­ages were lat­er reduced to $60 mil­lion.

This report is well worth reading for its detailed review of documents.  These demonstrate that Monsanto and BASF could not have cared less about the damage their herbicide might cause.  Monsanto has been purchased by Bayer, which defends its purchase to the hilt.

Bayer’s stock prices declined dramatically after the Monsanto purchase.  It’s hard to feel sorry for either company.

A reader, Betsy Keller, forwarded a message she received because she belongs to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, (formerly the American Dietetic Association), the professional association for Registered Dietitian Nutritionists.

From: “Today’s Dietitian” <todays_dietitian@gvpublishing.com>

Subject: Questions about pesticides and food? We have answers.

The message originates from Bayer, the German drug company that bought Monsanto a few years ago.

Monsanto invented the herbicide glyphosate, which is used to kill backyard weeds as well as those that occur in fields of GMO corn and soybeans,.

Glyphosate has been linked to cancer risk, particularly non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Tens of thousands of people with non-Hodgkin lymphoma are suing Bayer for glyphosate-related damages.  The courts have ruled in favor of several such plaintiffs.

Bayer has agreed to pay $10 billion (!) to settle these lawsuits.

In the message to dietitians, Bayer says:

Pesticides enable farmers to produce safe, quality foods at affordable prices.They also help farmers provide an abundance of nutritious, all-year-round foods, which are necessary for human health. Crop quantity and quality rely on crop protection. For example, a U.S. study estimated that without fungicides, yields of most fruit and vegetables would fall by 50-90 percent. Moreover, pesticides decrease exposure to food contaminated with harmful micro-organisms and naturally occurring toxins, preventing food-related illnesses.

Oddly, the Bayer message says not one word about glyphosate, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, or the lawsuits.

Bayer must want dietitians to reassure their clients that pesticides like glyphosate are safe.  Bayer must not want dietitians to link glyphosate to cancer risk.

I can’t help thinking that Bayer must have paid Today’s Dietitian to send this message to the AND membership.

I can’t think of any other reason why this association would allow a message like this to be sent to its members.

Correction

Several readers wrote to point out that the Bayer message comes from Today’s Dietitian, not from the Academy.

For example, Nancy Teeter, RDN, gave me permission to quote her:

Thank you for all you do to keep the public informed.  As a registered dietitian nutritionist, I was appalled that Bayer sponsored an educational program for us. I believe you are correct when you say follow the money. Today’s Dietitian is a private company and appears to accept advertising dollars from anyone. AND charges organizations for the use [of] the mailing lists, so everyone wins financially. At the same time, the reputation of our organization is diminished.

She points out: “They also sell their email lists to advertisers.”

Mary Purdy, MS, RDN, who also gave permission, writes:

Thank you for spreading the word about this.  A group of dietitians (myself included) are formulating a letter in response to this and I have already been in touch personally with Today’s Dietitian about this issue which I find extremely concerning.

It is very important to clarify that this message came from Today’s Dietitian, (https://www.todaysdietitian.com/) which is a totally separate entity from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.  https://www.eatright.org/

The Academy has its own set of issues, but I wanted you to be sure that your readers understand that the pesticide info from Bayer came from an eblast from the publisher and business ” Today’s Dietitian”.  This org definitely needs to be held accountable  for this kind of irresponsible corporate sponsorship that spreads erroneous and harmful information so thank you for your efforts here.

She adds: “I also let Today’s Dietitian know that I would be unsubscribing from their eblasts and have encouraged others to do so as well.”

She also adds: “And yes, you are right.  Bayer is an official sponsor of Today’s Dietitian and pays them. They were also one of the sponsors of their recent symposium (At which I spoke… ironically about environmental chemicals and supporting detoxification and elimination organs with diet!).  Here is the website:  you can go to “Sponsors” and see Bayer there among others. https://www.todaysdietitian.com/ss20/”

And she forwarded the letter she received from a rep from Today’s Dietitian.  Here are the relevant excerpts:

Thank you for reaching out and expressing your thoughts and concerns regarding the Bayer ad and Today’s Dietitian….Having been a friend of TD  for so long, I’m sure you are aware that the primary support for the publication comes from advertising revenue. Without advertisements, TD does not exist. That said, as with other advertising-driven business models, TD does not endorse or support any product, service, or entity advertised in the magazine or its brand extensions. TD simply offers vehicles for advertisers to reach the brand’s audience.

While you may not agree with the advertisement in question, the advertiser obviously finds value in reaching registered dietitians. Otherwise, they would not be interested in promoting to this professional audience. Just as any other audience that consumes advertising can use its own judgement to decide whether or not to explore an advertised item, so too can the TD readership decide whether or not to pursue any further engagement with the advertiser.

Dietitians: here’s your chance.  Act now.

• Unsubscribe to Today’s Dietitian
• Tell AND you do not want your contact information sold to advertisers.