Several influential people in the “Make America Healthy Again” movement said they felt betrayed after the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Bayer, the maker of Roundup, does not have to warn consumers about the potential cancer risk associated with its weed killer.
The decision could prevent thousands of lawsuits in state courts from arguing that Roundup should come with cancer warnings.
A growing body of scientific evidence shows that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, links to cancer. The issue has long worried a subgroup of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s followers, known as the “Great Moms”, who want to eliminate the chemicals from the food supply. The group rallied in front of the Supreme Court during oral arguments in April, and a smaller group expressed their concerns about less regulation of pesticides directly to Kennedy and President Donald Trump at a White House meeting that month.
Thursday’s decision gave new fuel to concerns within the movement that the Trump administration has prioritised the interests of the agrochemical industry.
Vani Hari, a high-profile MAHA voice known by the nickname “Food Babe,” said in a text message, “This decision is tragic and would never have happened if the administration had not given the benefits to Bayer Monsanto.” Bayer bought Monsanto, the original maker of Roundup, in 2018.
“Congress must take action to address this issue,” Hari said.
questions about the Supreme Court’s decision.
The White House did not respond to NBC News’ questions about the Supreme Court’s decision. The Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to a request for comment.
The plaintiff – a Missouri man named John Darnell – sued Monsanto in 2019, alleging that two decades of Roundup use had caused him to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a type of blood cancer. A jury sided with him in 2023 and awarded him $1.25 million, but the Supreme Court took the case up on appeal. The Trump administration supported Bayer’s petition. The Biden administration had taken the opposite stance in a previous Roundup-related case against Bayer. The Supreme Court is being urged to dismiss his appeal.
In a 7-2 decision Thursday, the court said Bayer could not be sued in state courts because federal rules found Roundup was unlikely to have a link to cancer and did not require warning labels.
In 2020, the Environmental Protection Agency, during the Trump administration, determined that glyphosate was unlikely to be a human carcinogen. Environmental groups sued, and a federal appeals court ruled that the EPA had not adequately explained its analysis. The EPA agreed to update its assessment, although it has not yet published a new version.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization, classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans” in 2015.
Kelly Ryerson, a prominent MHA activist known as the “glyphosate girl,” said the Supreme Court decision cost the Trump administration some loyalty to the MHA movement.
He said, “No administration in history has so blatantly and willingly sold out our fertility, vitality, and health to corporate interests.” written on x. This behaviour is inexcusable. We will make sure all voters know exactly how this domestic chemical attack occurred.”
MAHA has found itself at odds with the Trump administration on several recent occasions.
In February, Trump angered some leaders of the movement by signing an executive order invoking the Defence Production Act to boost the supply of glyphosate. Kennedy supported this move, saying it was a way to increase domestic agricultural production, and he called pesticides “toxic by design.” Kennedy told senators at a hearing in April that he believed glyphosate causes cancer. Before joining the federal government, Kennedy served as counsel representing plaintiffs suing Monsanto who alleged that Roundup had caused their non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Some key MHA figures were also critical of Food and Drug Administration regulatory changes in May that expanded access to fruit-flavoured e-cigarettes. Earlier, he rejected moves by the EPA to roll back mercury emissions standards and rescind drinking water limits for some PFAS, which are also known as “forever chemicals.”
“MHA moms are less motivated to vote right now because we’re not seeing what we expected,” Michaela Bardosas, a nutritionist who works with an MHA advocacy group called Moms Across America, told NBC News in April.
“If these Republicans want to stay in power, they must step up and show support for their voters,” he said. “The pesticide issue is a serious problem,” he said.
The two dissenting Supreme Court justices were Ketanji Brown Jackson and Neil Gorsuch. Jackson wrote that the majority’s decision “unfairly closes the court’s door” to plaintiffs like Darnell.
In a statement on Thursday, Bayer said the decision was “good for science, farmers and industries that depend on regulatory clarity for innovation”.
As MHA activists turn their attention to Congress, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., said Thursday she intends to introduce legislation to strip liability protections from pesticide companies.
“These companies knowingly omitted labelling information, even though they knew their products caused cancer and other health problems. It is time for them to be held accountable,” he wrote on X.
Luna led an effort this year to defeat a provision initially included in the Farm Bill that would have protected Bayer from charges that its herbicide contained a potentially cancer-causing ingredient.
Scientists who have studied the health risks of glyphosate said the EPA’s 2020 analysis was not based on the strongest evidence. At a symposium in Seattle in March, dozens of international scientists concluded that while the evidence suggests glyphosate can cause cancer, the strongest evidence points to an increased risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Some researchers have also pointed out differences between studies used for International Agency for Research on Cancer analysis and the EPA. He says that IARC relied mostly on peer-reviewed research, while EPA drew from unpublished studies funded by the pesticide industry.
“IARC got this right, and the evidence has become stronger since the IARC review in 2015,” said Lianne Shepard, a professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences at the University of Washington.
