The Supreme Court has dealt a devastating blow to the Make America Healthy Again Movement by blocking a path for users of the popular Roundup weedkiller to secure payouts from Monsanto for failing to disclose the product’s cancer risk.
In a 7-2 ruling led by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the court ruled in favor of Bayer, which owns Monsanto, finding that states cannot require more information on the pesticide label than required by federal regulation.
Failure-to-warn arguments have helped Roundup customers like Missouri resident John Durnell, who won a $1.25 million state court verdict against Monsanto after he developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Roundup users have argued that the product’s key ingredient, glyphosate, is carcinogenic. EPA has determined that the chemical does not pose a cancer risk if used according to the label’s instructions, a finding that Monsanto and Trump officials said blocks states from reaching their own determinations about what information should appear on the weed killer’s label.
The fight over pesticides has galvanized the MAHA movement, even as some of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s allies have criticized him for not going far enough to advance their priorities on pesticides and vaccines. Grassroots supporters, however, have successfully pushed to rid the House farm bill of language that would protect pesticide makers against liability.
But they’ve failed to win the full support from the White House and congressional Republicans on their anti-pesticide efforts. The Trump administration has struggled to thread the needle of supporting a traditionally loyal constituency — farmers — and pleasing a relatively new part of the MAGA coalition, MAHA advocates. At the Supreme Court, Trump’s White House sided with Bayer in an amicus brief, prompting widespread frustration among MAHA advocates.
The White House has sought to reassure its farming allies who worried the administration was poised to ban glyphosate. In addition to its support for Bayer at the Supreme Court, the Trump administration approved a mining permit for Bayer and signed an executive order invoking the Defense Production Act to boost domestic glyphosate production — sparking ire from MAHA advocates.
The blowback culminated in a rally in front of the Supreme Court, where MAHA advocates, lawmakers of both parties and lawyers spoke against a ruling favoring Bayer and other pesticide manufacturers.
Still, MAHA advocates were successful in ridding the House farm bill draft of language that would have protected pesticide makers from liability.
Bayer CEO Bill Anderson said in a statement following the Supreme Court’s ruling that the decision is “good for American farmers who help feed the world” and provides regulatory certainty.
“This litigation has enormous costs for the company and has impacted public trust,” Anderson said. “The decision brings overdue justice on an issue that should have been clarified much earlier. It’s time to put it behind us.”
Bayer said it expects the ruling to contain the Roundup litigation after decades of slugging it out in the courts and noted that Monsanto is continuing to pursue final approval of a $7.25 billion class-action settlement to resolve glyphosate cancer claims.
Christopher Seeger, proposed class counsel in the settlement, decried the court’s decision.
“This Supreme Court ruling wrongly slams the courthouse door on Americans sickened by pesticides, and underscores why we negotiated a $7.25 billion settlement that guarantees compensation to Roundup victims regardless of today’s decision,” he said in a statement. “We urge those opposing this agreement … to drop their opposition so that tens of thousands of cancer victims no longer have to wait for justice after a decade of delay.”
