By Cami Koons [email protected] Published May 15th, 2024 at 12:15 PM
On the outskirts of the metro, and even more so in rural areas, drivers in Missouri pass billboards displaying generic farm scenes and big orange text urging viewers to “control weeds, not farming.” The campaign, and an associated website, are part of a collaboration involving more than 80 agricultural groups across the country and Bayer, a pharmaceutical and biotechnology company.
Bayer bought the agrichemical company Monsanto in 2018. St. Louis-based Monsanto was famous for its game-changing herbicide, Roundup, and its genetically modified, Roundup-resistant seeds. With the sale, Bayer also inherited numerous lawsuits against Monsanto that claimed exposure to the chemicals in Roundup caused cancer in plaintiffs.
Bayer, which has offices in Kansas City and St. Louis, has paid out billions in settlements against the claims, which are ongoing. Now it seeks legislative relief from the lawsuits.
Bayer and members of Modern Ag Alliance are pushing for the Missouri legislature to pass House Bill 2763 and codify that farm chemical labeling by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is sufficient to satisfy warning labeling requirements. Environmental groups and attorneys counter that the legislation would block Missourians from their right to seek compensation for harm and would unfairly benefit a corporation. With only a couple of days left in Missouri’s legislative session, advocates for and against the bill are anxious to see if it will be pushed through.
A Long History
According to Modern Ag Alliance, 91% of soybean acres and more than half of corn acres in Missouri rely on glyphosate (the chemical in Roundup). Since its creation in the 1970s Roundup has become a key tool for farmers. The EPA has evaluated glyphosate many times since the turn of the century and holds that the substance is “not likely to be carcinogenic to humans.”
Proponents of the bill argue that EPA (which was created in part to regulate the use of pesticides) labeling requirements and evaluation are the ultimate standard. But opponents question the EPA’s ability to fairly and adequately make such judgments. Some see a conflict of interest between the agency and the farm chemical industry.
Others question the validity of the research the EPA evaluated — especially after the Monsanto papers revealed the company had ghostwritten studies touting the safety of Roundup. So far, more than 100,000 Roundup lawsuits have been either settled or dismissed. About 30,000 lawsuits are still pending, according to Forbes.
Most of these cases seek justice based on failure-to-warn claims for folks who have developed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a type of cancer. These claims allege that the company knew the product was dangerous to customers and it did not inform them of this risk. The Missouri bill, sponsored by Rep. Dane Diehl (R-Butler), would protect companies like Bayer from failure-to-warn claims so long as the company followed labeling regulations and registration of the EPA. Modern Ag Alliance supported similar bills in Idaho and Iowa, neither of which passed.
Jess Christiansen, Bayer’s head of crop science communications, said the alliance and the legislation are about protecting access to important farming tools. “The point of the legislation is to create that transparency and science-based labeling requirements to make sure that those really do hold up, that we cannot be held accountable for failure to warn if we’re labeling according to regulatory bodies’ reviews,” Christiansen said.
Christiansen said the pesticide industry is held to rigorous testing standards, and on average it takes 12 years for a product to move from discovery to the shelves. “And it should — we should be going through all the safety assessments,” she said. “The issue is that what we’re being asked to do is to label a product with something that it doesn’t do. These products do not cause cancer. We should not be warning towards that.”
When California tried to impose a cancer warning label on Roundup under Proposition 65, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Bayer. The ruling held that labeling of a product with something so controversial and that the company disagreed with was a violation of the first amendment.
In the opinion of Amy Collignon Gunn, an injury and malpractice attorney at Simon Law Firm in St. Louis, which has worked with clients in Roundup litigation, the decision in California shows that there’s still intense disagreement on the subject. “There is a dispute,” Collignon Gunn said. “There’s science both ways. You can argue about which science is better, which one was bought and that kind of thing. But at its core, there’s a debate about whether Roundup causes cancer.” The debate is exactly why Collignon Gunn believes juries and courts should continue to decide these issues.
“That’s what lawsuits and juries are all about — to answer these debates, to make a decision based on the evidence from both sides,” she said.
LEARN MORE
- Can people can still sue Bayer?
- Will Bayer Stop Making Roundup?
- What Happens Next?
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- KC Eco-Org Networking Event: May 29
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