The pesticide liability shield is a public health crisis

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In 1962, marine biologist Rachel Carson published “Silent Spring,” an environmental science book that examined the excessive spraying of the synthetic pesticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, commonly known as DDT, and its devastating environmental impacts. History widely credits Carson’s research with kicking off the environmental movement; by exposing the industry’s pattern of environmental poisoning and deceptive cover-ups, she ignited a global passion for conservation and awareness of widespread corporate wrongdoing. It is a disappointment, therefore, that the fight against agrochemical abuse is still ongoing more than 40 years later, as the industry deploys lobbying power to suppress human rights.

On July 22, the House Appropriations Committee advanced the FY26 Interior-Environment Appropriations Bill. The bill includes Section 453, which restricts  the issuance of new agrochemical warning labels and significantly weakens the Environmental Protection Agency’s capacity to regulate. 

The EPA already does a subpar job at regulating dangerous pesticides — recently, the agency revealed plans to revive approval for dicamba, a herbicide that courts banned twice for harming environmental health — and this new bill will weaken pesticide regulation even more.

By binding product labeling to the specific interpretations of the EPA, the policy would largely eliminate the ability to sue on the grounds of failure to warn. For example, this new restriction would apply if an agrochemical works by design, but does not feature a warning label to alert consumers of the harms and damages that its residue could cause. If all warning labels only reflect the EPA’s conclusions verbatim, and those EPA conclusions insist that a pesticide is safe, then victims of pesticide injuries will not be able to hold manufacturers accountable for lacking safety warnings.

At first glance, this new policy seems relatively reasonable — the EPA does rigorous testing, and, in principle, it makes sense that their findings would dictate labelling policy under this new bill. 

But if an over-lenient EPA monopolizes the labeling system, everyday consumers are put in danger. The best case study is the story of the weedkiller Roundup and its ingredient chemical glyphosate. The EPA maintains that glyphosate — the most widely used herbicide in the world — has no risk to human health and is unlikely to be a human carcinogen. However, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer came to the exact opposite conclusion, asserting that glyphosate was likely carcinogenic to humans

Taking away consumers’ ability to sue lets companies get away with more. Multiple jury trials have swung in favor of plaintiffs who allege Roundup gave them cancer. These lawsuits have culminated in multi-billion-dollar verdicts against the company. While juries don’t decide science, these trials have featured testimonies against glyphosate from expert witnesses such as Dr. Christopher Portier, a toxicologist and the former director of the U.S. National Center for Environmental Health, who maintains that regulators neglect independent science and endanger human health by declaring glyphosate completely safe. Meanwhile, Bayer, the overarching company producing Roundup, is still burdened by more than 60,000 Roundup lawsuits

The ability to sue empowers those with life-altering health problems to seek remedy and justice. The Roundup cases have allowed afflicted individuals to put a serious dent in an infamous megacorporation. Thus, it makes sense why megacompanies are putting political pressure on Congress to make these lawsuits stop.

Beyond glyphosate, this legislation will create a liability shield around more than 16,000 pesticides, exempting each of their manufacturers from liability over failure to warn or concealing information if the EPA considers them safe. This list of chemicals includes paraquat, whose manufacturer, Syngenta, faces thousands of lawsuits for allegedly covering up the product causing Parkinson’s, and atrazine, which the EPA already permits at unscientifically high levels and has been linked to hormonal feminization of male genitalia.

This federal legislation is also joined by state-level bills in creating broader exemptions for pesticide manufacturers. The end result: an already underregulated agrochemical industry will have free rein to poison Americans so long as the reckless EPA turns a blind eye.

This bill goes directly against the Make America Healthy Again movement, whose leader, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the United States Health and Human Services, made a career out of suing pesticide companies and has long attacked the usage of chemical pesticides such as atrazine and glyphosate. Given that Congress’ Make America Healthy Again caucus is entirely composed of Republicans, one should expect passionate outcry from these MAHA allies. However, on July 22, the bill was advanced through the House Appropriations Committee on party lines, with support from all 33 Republican representatives who voted. 

In contrast, a resounding 28 Democratic representatives voted no. In addition, Sen. Cory Booker, D-NJ, has stepped forward to introduce the Pesticide Injury Accountability Act, which would preserve the ability to sue agrochemical companies over injuries. Defensive policy like Booker’s bill is the critical infrastructure for actually making America healthy again.

A fundamental tenet of our democracy is that no one is above the law. To deny pesticide victims justice and to grant special treatment to megacorporations is a direct defilement of that sentiment — and that is exactly what this new bill does. As a matter of public health and human rights, we must draw a line in the sand and refuse to relinquish our access to fair justice over injury.

Hunter Ryerson is an Opinion Columnist who writes about human health and innovation in his column “Human Vitals.” He can be reached at hryerson@umich.edu.

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