Iowa Republicans Want to Shield Pesticide Firms From Cancer Lawsuits

Yahoo

03-04-2025

Growing up on a cattle ranch in Clarinda, Iowa, Tatum Watkins wanted nothing more than to be outside, help out on the farm, and run freely through the fields like other kids in the farming community. Instead, she spent much of her childhood driving to medical appointments out of state. Watkins was born with a birth defect known as gastroschisis, in which her abdominal organs were outside of her body. Angry and confused as she sat on the sidelines, Watkins often wondered why she was different. By the time she was 10, she had a hypothesis.
Every summer, Watkins's father would plant grapes on the ranch around the same time her neighbors sprayed pesticides on their crops. Every summer, the grapes would die. When a young Watkins made the connection, she began to wonder if the pesticides—a simple 'fact of life' in Iowa—could also have caused her gastroschisis. Her best friend, who suffered from a similar abdominal wall defect, also grew up on a working farm.
Years later, research found that excess exposure to Atrazine, a herbicide created by the pesticide giant Syngenta, is indeed associated with an increased risk of gastroschisis. Watkins will never know for sure if that's what caused her condition, but she wishes she and her family had access to this research a decade ago. 'Had people had the data to go forward with a lawsuit back then, I think that would have been a brilliant thing,' Watkins said.
Iowa has the second-highest rate of cancer cases and the fastest-growing cancer rate in the country. It's also one of the top states for pesticide use. Thousands have sought and won legal battles against the handful of pesticide companies that dominate the market, and litigation has been a crucial tool to help Iowans pay for the health care they need. But now, facing billions in legal fees, pesticide companies are lobbying to block litigation against them with the introduction of Senate File 394.
The bill, which recently passed 26–21 in the Iowa State Senate and will be voted on in the House this month, would prevent Iowans from bringing lawsuits against a pesticide manufacturer for failing to warn them of health risks, as long as the product includes a label approved by the Environmental Protection Agency. The votes to pass the bill came exclusively from Senate Republicans, although six Republicans also joined Democratic colleagues in opposing the measure.
'This bill would essentially make the federal labeling requirements sufficient legally, as far as whether they are adequate to warn consumers about potential harms from using that pesticide,' said Dani Replogle, a staff attorney at Food and Water Watch who has been following the bill closely. So if a person is diagnosed with cancer, and they suspect their illness is linked to pesticide exposure (as a growing body of research suggests), the person could not sue the company for so-called 'failure to warn' if their label follows EPA guidelines.
'I think the groups who are most at risk are farmers, and particularly migrant farm workers, who are already in a very hazardous line of work,' Replogle said, adding that children, pregnant people, and the elderly are also at risk. Eighty-nine percent of Iowans oppose S.F. 394, according to polling from the Iowa Association for Justice.
Dubbed the 'Cancer Gag Act' by critics, the bill is part of a larger nationwide push from the pesticide manufacturer Bayer to reduce its litigation costs. Similar laws have been introduced in eight states, as well as at the federal level. Over the last decade, Bayer has faced more than 167,000 lawsuits related to the use of its herbicide Roundup, a weedkiller originally developed by Monsanto and a product that forever changed the productivity of American farming; its use is practically synonymous with the country's industrial food system. When Bayer acquired Monsanto in 2018, it also acquired billions in litigation and settlement fees. The company has set aside more than $16 billion to deal with Roundup-related lawsuits, and has already paid out more than $10 billion in settlements. Just last week, the company was ordered to pay one of its largest payouts yet: a whopping $2.1 billion to a Georgia man who claimed that excess exposure to Roundup caused his cancer and that the company failed to warn of this possibility. Bayer did not respond to a request for comment.
Roundup contains glyphosate, a synthetic herbicide that's been classified as a 'probable human carcinogen' by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a research arm of the World Health Organization. Its use is banned in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and other countries. The EPA however, has found that glyphosate is 'not likely to be carcinogenic to humans,' a finding that pesticide companies argue exempts them from having to warn of Roundup's health risks.
The Modern Agriculture Alliance, a coalition of agriculture stakeholders founded by Bayer as part of its lobbying efforts, argues that glyphosate is an essential tool for crop yields in Iowa to ensure the state has 'a robust and affordable domestic food supply,' and that the bill to shield pesticide companies from lawsuits is crucial in ensuring farmers' long-term access to Roundup. The Modern Ag Alliance declined to comment on the record for this story, but pointed to a statement after the bill passed in the Iowa State Senate. 'If farmers lose access to key crop protection inputs due to meritless litigation,' said Modern Ag Alliance executive director Elizabeth Burns-Thompson in the statement, 'it will cripple their ability to compete and cause food prices to go even higher. That's why the overwhelming majority of Iowans support legislation that protects farmers' tools, and not the trial lawyers and radical, anti-ag activist groups that want to 'end capitalism' and put our farms at risk.'
That's inconsistent with polling showing that a majority of Iowans oppose the bill. Those who do support the bill, physician and Iowa State Representative Megan Srivinas said, may also be under a mistaken impression of how it would work in practice. 'There are a lot of half-truths to try to scare people into passing this,' Srivinas said. For example, though much of the bill's debate focuses on the effects of glyphosate, Srivinas pointed out that the legislation includes lawsuits related to 'any pesticide, herbicide or fungicide, whether it exists today or ever in the future.'
A number of other harmful chemicals would therefore be exempt from failure to warn lawsuits should the bill pass. Exposure to paraquat, a weed-killing chemical manufactured by Syngenta (parent company ChemChina), has been linked to Parkinson's disease. A 2022 report from The Guardian revealed that Syngenta 'insiders feared they could face legal liability for long-term, chronic effects of paraquat as long ago as 1975.' Syngenta also invented Atrazine, the herbicide linked to gastroschisis. The company did not respond to request for comment.
'There are so many carcinogens out there, and we need to understand all the different impacts so we can actually combat this cancer epidemic in our state,' Srivinas said. Both Srinivas's mother-in-law and father-in-law, who are farmers, have been diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives. 'We need to give people the ability to get treatment, to understand what's going on, and to be able to make the choices for themselves, right?'
But fighting pesticide use in an agricultural state like Iowa isn't easy. If you're urban or rural, whether you use pesticides on your crops or not, you've likely been exposed to pesticides in some form or another, said Rob Faux, an organic farmer in northeast Iowa. He's been farming for more than 20 years, and though he doesn't use pesticides on his vegetables, his property is surrounded by soy and corn row crops that are regularly sprayed. Like many Iowans, Faux is a cancer survivor, and he relentlessly ponders whether he got sick just because of his profession.
'It's a common acceptance in rural Iowa that we're probably being poisoned, but we don't want to know about it because we're not sure we can do anything about it,' Faux said.
Over the last year, Faux has opposed S.F. 394 through his work at the Pesticide Action and Agroecology Network, a coalition that seeks to end the country's reliance on pesticides. PAN, along with a number of other advocacy groups, including Food and Water Watch, has led opposition efforts across the state. In February, more than 150 people rallied in the Capitol against the legislation.
It's important but exhausting work, Faux said. 'This is not what I do by nature. I prefer to grow things, or I prefer to educate people, which are the two things that I've done more of my life,' he said. Still, he thinks advocacy is needed nationwide. In addition to similar legislation being close to passing in Georgia and North Dakota, the attorneys general of Nebraska, Iowa, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Montana, North Dakota, South Carolina, and South Dakota have also filed a petition to amend a federal law that would make it harder to sue pesticide companies.
In Iowa, the bill has until April 4 to pass at least one committee in the House, but its lifetime could be extended through an appropriations process. Advocates are hopeful that representatives will prioritize the health and well-being of Iowans over corporate profit.
'I know people often get tired and frustrated, and they don't feel like they're making a difference,' Faux said. 'But I need to remind everybody that, believe it or not, you do make a difference if you come with integrity, if you come with the right intention.'