Georgia recently became the second state to sign legislation shielding Bayer AG, the maker of Roundup, from future lawsuits related to its key ingredient glyphosate. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed the law May 10.
Three weeks earlier, South Dakota became the first state to shield Bayer, as Gov. Kelly Armstrong signed a similar bill April 24.
The future of glyphosate, the key ingredient in Roundup, is at stake in a multi-sided tug of war. The chemical giant has settled 181,000 claims that glyphosate has caused lymphoma, but faces another 67,000. Most claims are in state courts, although about 4,000 are consolidated in a federal multidistrict case in California, according to Bayer.
Bayer continues to fight the lawsuits, alternating wins and losses. Bayer claims the constant lawsuits have drained profitability from what was once its signature product, despite $2 billion a year in earnings, and has warned that unless it gets permanent protection that it may stop making and selling glyphosate-related products. It has pulled glyphosate products from its lawn and garden sector, from whose customers most lawsuits originate.
Bayer recently announced that it was exiting the seed treatment business to strengthen its financial position. This decision involved closing the company’s seed treatment equipment manufacturing facility in Shakopee, Minnesota, a location where Bayer had invested $12 million in 2015. While Bayer will no longer manufacture seed treatment equipment, the company said it remains committed to seed treatments themselves.
Bayer’s American CEO, Bill Anderson, is under pressure from investors and stakeholders to reverse a two-year drop in operating income. Bayer has mounted an aggressive campaign with billboards and social media posts, with farmers and agriculture groups signing on and telling their stories. It insists that glyphosate has been found safe by all but one organization, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which said in 2015 that glyphosate was “probably carcinogenic.”
It has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that the Environmental Protection Agency’s ruling that glyphosate is “not likely to be carcinogenic to humans” should override and nullify California’s warning label on glyphosate.
MAHA report to come
On another front, The Wall Street Journal reported May 13 that some White House officials are concerned about an upcoming report by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that may target glyphosate in the food chain. Kennedy is preparing the report, to be called “Make America Healthy Again,” that reportedly identifies pesticides including glyphosate as a cause of health problems.
On the campaign trail, Kennedy vowed to remove pesticides from the food chain. President Donald Trump promised to “investigate” pesticides. The report also reportedly targets atrazine, which is banned for use in the European Union but is widely used in the U.S. to control weeds in fields of corn, sorghum and sugarcane.
In March, a delegation of farmers from CropLife America visited the White House and laid their concerns directly to Kennedy and his team. As reported by AgWeb, Northeast Iowa farmer Ben Riensche told the team that glyphosate is crucial to efforts to promote no-till agriculture which preserves thousands of tons of topsoil. He said he told them that removing glyphosate from the food chain would raise food prices for American consumers, contradicting part of Trump’s “America first” agenda.
David Murray can be reached at [email protected]
