TAKE ACTION: Ban Bayer & ChemChina's Carcinogenic Herbicides

Cancer rates for young adults in their 20s, 30s and 40s are trending up even as overall cancer rates decline—with the highest rates in the states that use the most glyphosate and atrazine.

In the six leading states for corn production—Iowa, Nebraska, Illinois, Minnesota, Indiana, and Kansas—rates are 5 percent higher than in the overall population.

A 2024 analysis of population-level data in the journal Frontiers in Cancer Control and Society that “the impact of pesticide use on cancer incidence may rival that of smoking.”

IARC's determination that atrazine is a probable carcinogen should open up avenues for lawsuits against Syngenta (ChemChina). Thousands of Roundup-exposed cancer patients have sued Bayer, and juries continue to award billion dollar judgments, the latest being the $2.1 billion judgment in Georgia in March.

However, pesticide victims' right to sue could soon be taken away. The Trump Administration is siding with Bayer, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that federal Environmental Protection Agency labeling rules—that don't require a cancer warning for glyphosate—prevent state courts from hearing failure-to-warn claims.

Trump's U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer just did Bayer’s bidding. Bayer wants the Supreme Court to rule that lawsuits brought by Monsanto-poisoned cancer victims are preempted by the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) that sets pesticide labeling requirements. Sauer agreed with Bayer, stating in the brief that the Environmental Protection Agency “has repeatedly determined that glyphosate is not likely to be carcinogenic in humans, and the agency has repeatedly approved Roundup labels that did not contain cancer warnings.”

Among the outlets reporting the news, Common Dreams was one of the few to point out the significance of the Trump Administration attempting to undo one of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s major achievements as a plaintiffs’ attorney:

Notably, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. built his national profile campaigning against the dangers of pesticides and railing against regulatory capture by big business.

Kennedy served as an attorney for Dewayne Johnson, the first plaintiff to win damages against Monsanto in 2018, where a jury determined that Roundup had contributed to his cancer.

“If my life were a Superman comic, Monsanto would be my Lex Luthor,” Kennedy said in a 2020 Facebook post. “I’ve seen this company as the enemy of every admirable American value.”

During Kennedy’s 2024 presidential run, he pledged to “ban the worst agricultural chemicals already banned in other countries.”

But after he was sworn in as President Donald Trump’s HHS Secretary, he began to sing a different tune. As Investigate Midwest noted, his “Make America Healthy Again” commission’s introductory report made no mention of glyphosate.

Meanwhile, he reassured the pesticide industry that it had nothing to worry about: “There’s a million farmers who rely on glyphosate. 100% of corn in this country relies on glyphosate. We are not going to do anything to jeopardize that business model,” he said during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing.

We can't give up hope that, even if the Supreme Court takes up the Monsanto cases, Roundup-exposed cancer victims will prevail. There is some good news ("The Science Shows Glyphosate must be Banned," December 4, 2025, by Dr. André Leu, International Director, Regeneration International):

The primary scientific study pesticide regulators worldwide used to justify the approval of Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup and many other herbicides, has been retracted due to fraud.

This study, by Gary Williams, Robert Kroes, and Ian Munro, was used to cast doubt on the numerous published studies showing that Glyphosate caused cancers and many other diseases.

Researchers Alexander A. Kauro and Naomi Oreskes published a study in Environmental Science and Policy that identified multiple flaws in the Williams paper, including the fact that it was ghostwritten by Monsanto employees, which constitutes academic fraud. The Williams paper used unpublished studies from Monsanto and ignored a large number of scientific studies showing the multiple diseases Glyphosate causes, including cancer.

This paper was cited and used by regulators as the basis for approving the use of glyphosate-based pesticides and overriding the evidence presented in hundreds of studies showing the immense harm caused by them to human health and the environment.

This retraction comes a few months after the landmark study on glyphosate by Panzacchi et al. was published on June 10, 2025, examining total lifetime exposure to the so-called ‘safe’ levels to which most people are subjected.

The study found that the lowest dose of 0.5 mg/kg, which is four times lower than the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed ‘safe’ level, caused increased rates of both benign and malignant tumors in various parts of the body compared to the controls. These tumors included leukemia, skin, liver, thyroid, nervous system, ovary, mammary gland, adrenal glands, kidney, urinary bladder, bone, endocrine system, pancreas, uterus, and spleen.

Now that William’s study has been retracted, the main reason for trusting the safety of glyphosate-based herbicides has disappeared, leaving no reason to avoid banning these highly toxic poisons that pollute nearly every part of the environment and the bodies of most living creatures, especially us and our children.

TAKE ACTION: Tell Your State Legislators to Ban Bayer and ChemChina's Carcinogenic Pesticides!