“Health for all, Hunger for None.”
The Bayer slogan behind a federal act invocation.
In February, President Trump invoked the Defense Production Act, ordering companies to boost production of the herbicide, glyphosate. The use of this statute means that glyphosate is “critical to the national defense,” because without it, the President asserted, U.S. “agricultural productivity” will be jeopardized. This came just days after Bayer agreed to a multibillion-dollar settlement with plaintiffs who claim the weedkiller caused their cancer. Bayer’s company slogan, “Health for all, Hunger for None,” asserts that its chemicals, such as glyphosate, fight hunger and serve our health.
But glyphosate use does not translate to more food on Americans’ plates, much less better health. In agricultural settings, glyphosate (common trade name: Roundup) is mostly used in the production of genetically modified, “Roundup Ready” crops, including corn, soy, alfalfa and cotton, which support livestock feed and fiber production, rather than direct human nutrition. More than a third of U.S. corn is used for ethanol, a biofuel of dubious environmental benefit.
Meanwhile, Bayer has asked the Supreme Court to indemnify them from any further legal liability based on claims that glyphosate causes cancer, and the Trump administration has sided with Bayer.
During President Trump’s first term, the Environmental Protection Agency reaffirmed its conclusion that glyphosate is not likely carcinogenic. This contrasts with the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which classifies glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans,” the same classification as DDT, a pesticide banned for general use in the United States in 1972.
What does it mean for a chemical to be “probably carcinogenic”? Well, new research by environmental advocacy group Food & Water Watch shows that 60% of counties “that spray the most glyphosate” have non-Hodgkin lymphoma “incidence rates above the national average.” In Iowa, that number is closer to 82%. A 2019 meta-analysis of Agricultural Health Study data found that people with the highest cumulative glyphosate exposure face a 41% higher relative risk of developing non-Hodgkin lymphoma compared to those exposed to low level or no glyphosate. And it’s not just cancer. Glyphosate exposure has also been implicated in acute issues such as respiratory issues and skin and eye irritation, as well as metabolic and developmental effects.
Whether or not you believe the science that glyphosate is safe (though the paper that grounded much of that claim was recently retracted because it was ghostwritten by company employees), the national-security framing raises a larger concern: when companies face mounting litigation risk, there are pathways for them to evade legal liability under federal law. If this chemical is safe, then let Bayer make the case for it in court, and in the marketplace. The federal government should not be making the case for them.
Naomi Oreskes is the Henry Charles Lea Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University and an affiliated professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences. She is the co-author of the newsletter Reckoning Science.
Nina B. Elkadi is a writer focused on agriculture and corporate manipulation of science. She is the author of the newsletter Corn Belt Confidential.
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A bailout at a whole new level. Bayer hasn't been able to make its case in court. That's why it keeps losing, so instead of changing its formula or moving on to another product it doubles down with lobbying, PACs and now Trump giving their product special status with the power of the federal government. Disgusting.