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Supreme Court's Monsanto Ruling Proves Trump Promise to 'Make America Healthy Again' Was a Farce
If one needed any further proof, today’s decision is all the evidence needed.
Jun 25, 2026
The US Supreme Court on Thursday sided with pesticide manufacturer Bayer in Monsanto Company v. Durnell, ruling that federal law preempts lawsuits brought by cancer patients who allege its Roundup product was to blame for their disease.
With the Trump administration siding with Bayer in the litigation, the devastating ruling by the court extends this legal shield to all pesticide corporations, leaving patients harmed by these toxic agricultural chemicals without the recourse of litigation that has cost Bayer billions of dollars.
Once again, the Supreme Court has sided with big business over people and the environment. This ruling is a disaster for public health—and it has Trump’s name written all over it. If one needed any further proof that the president’s feigned mission to "Make America Healthy Again" was a farce, today’s decision is all the evidence needed. Trump has been all too willing to endorse Bayer’s crusade to pollute with impunity, while the administration doubles down on a failed pesticide regulatory scheme.
Industrial agriculture is poisoning America. The fight against toxic pesticides does not end here. Congress must pass the Pesticide Injury Accountability Act to safeguard access to justice for all harmed by these toxic chemicals, and a Farm Bill that finally puts public health first. Until then, the Supreme Court has shut the courthouse doors to tens of thousands of sick and suffering Americans."
Today’s ruling comes despite a litany of evidence suggesting that glyphosate, the key ingredient in Bayer’s ubiquitous Roundup pesticide, is carcinogenic, and that the Environmental Protection Agency’s pesticide registration process is fatally flawed. The World Health Organization has defined glyphosate as a probable carcinogen since 2015. Roundup is the most widely used pesticide in the United States.
The decision completes Bayer’s years-long, well-financed quest to stifle cancer lawsuits cutting into its bottom line. Since purchasing Monsanto in 2018, Bayer has spent over $11 billion settling over 100,000 cancer lawsuits related to Roundup. Bayer has been pushing widely-opposed Cancer Gag Act bills nationwide, seeking to shield pesticide corporations from health-related lawsuits in multiple states and Congress. So far this year, the immunity legislation has failed in 11 states and was stripped from the House Farm Bill and left out of the Senate version.
There is a better way, including the Pesticide Injury Accountability Act, introduced by Sen. Corey Booker (D-NJ), which would restore the right to sue over pesticide harms. It's a right all Americans deserve.
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'Trump's Name Written All Over It': Supreme Court Sides With Monsanto Over Roundup Cancer Victims
"People who were exposed, workers who were never warned, consumers who trusted a label—they now have fewer tools to use to fight back. And the corporations responsible for that harm have more protection than ever."
Jun 25, 2026
Public health advocates, legal experts, and members of Congress were among those outraged on Thursday by the US Supreme Court's ruling in favor of Monsanto—and, effectively, against thousands of people who argue that its weedkiller Roundup caused their cancer.
Jay Feldman, executive director of the organization Beyond Pesticides, blasted the 7-2 decision as "a tragic setback for public and environmental health, allowing companies that produce toxic pesticides to evade the most basic of responsibilities, warning consumers that their products may cause cancer and other deadly diseases."
"In an age of deregulation, the ability of farmers, farmworkers, and consumers to hold chemical manufacturers accountable for hazard warnings is the keystone to minimum protection of public health, as demand in the market for the safest possible products grows daily," Feldman said in a statement.
The closely watched case stems from a state-level lawsuit and a resulting verdict in favor of John Durnell, a Missouri man who argued that Monsanto's glyphosate-based Roundup caused his non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a blood cancer, which is in remission after multiple rounds of chemotherapy. A jury agreed the herbicide's label should have had a cancer warning.
The World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer classified glyphosate as probably carcinogenic to humans over a decade ago, but the US Environmental Protection Agency and Bayer still insist it is safe. In a majority opinion penned by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the country's high court agreed with the company's argument that the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) preempts Durnell's failure-to-warn claim under state law.
In a dissent joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that "the majority reads into FIFRA a labeling requirement that does not exist, and it reads out of FIFRA the statute's ongoing prohibition on misbranding. This interpretation cannot be squared with the text of FIFRA or our precedents. Ultimately, the effect of the majority's interpretation is both remarkable and regrettable, for it unjustifiably closes the courthouse doors to state tort plaintiffs like Durnell."
Bayer—which bought Monsanto in 2018—similarly noted in a Thursday statement that the ruling "should help significantly contain the Roundup litigation after nearly a decade of legal battles," which the company also said that it will keep trying to resolve by seeking final approval of its proposed $7.25 billion class settlement.
"This case was never just about Bayer," Environmental Working Group president and co-founder Ken Cook emphasized Thursday. "It was about whether states retain the authority to provide stronger protections for their residents when federal regulations fall short, and whether ordinary Americans can hold powerful corporations accountable when their pesticides cause harm."
Despite returning to office with a promise to "Make America Healthy Again" alongside Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump's administration "didn't sit on the sidelines—it lobbied the Supreme Court to strip Americans of their right to sue. And its tactics worked," Cook pointed out. "When a president uses the vast power of the federal government to protect a pesticide company from accountability—instead of the people he swore to serve—our system is no longer working for ordinary Americans."
"The ultimate losers are the American people," Cook concluded. "People who were exposed, workers who were never warned, consumers who trusted a label—they now have fewer tools to use to fight back. And the corporations responsible for that harm have more protection than ever."
Federal lawmakers who have fought against GOP efforts to pass a legislative "liability shield" for pesticide companies, including Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Congressman Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) joined Cook in ripping the ruling, as did Earthjustice senior attorney Patti Goldman, who said that it "allows Monsanto and other chemical companies to avoid responsibility when their labels leave people unprotected from serious harm."
As Farm Action president Angela Huffman also warned that the ruling "sets a dangerous precedent for other corporations seeking similar immunity," Sarah Starman, senior food and agriculture Campaigner at Friends of the Earth, took aim at the Supreme Court for issuing a decision that "sells out farmers, gardeners, and rural communities to multibillion-dollar pesticide corporations."
Food & Water Watch legal director Tarah Heinzen, also condemned the decision, declaring that "once again, the Supreme Court has sided with big business over people and the environment."
"Today's ruling is a disaster for public health—and it has Trump's name written all over it," said Heinzen. "If one needed any further proof that the president's feigned mission to 'Make America Healthy Again' was a farce, today's decision is all the evidence needed. Trump has been all too willing to endorse Bayer's crusade to pollute with impunity, while the administration doubles down on a failed pesticide regulatory scheme."
"Industrial agriculture is poisoning America," she stressed. "The fight against toxic pesticides does not end here. Congress must pass the Pesticide Injury Accountability Act to safeguard access to justice for all harmed by these toxic chemicals, and a Farm Bill that finally puts public health first. Until then, the Supreme Court has shut the courthouse doors to tens of thousands of sick and suffering Americans."
Kayla Hancock, director of Protect Our Care's Public Health Project, also called out Trump for dispatching US Solicitor General D. John Sauer to argue the case on the side of Bayer and its legal team.
"First Donald Trump signed an executive order plowing the field for increased glyphosate production despite the known health risks to help grow profits for his chemical industry donors," Hancock said. "Then Trump dispatched his [US Department of Justice] lawyers to help Big Chemical secure blanket immunity from at least 100,000 glyphosate-related liability claims."
"Sadly, the Supreme Court agreed to give glyphosate makers a free pass to poison Americans without warning," she added. "Donald Trump always has and always will prioritize big money corporate interests that benefit him, even if it means marginalizing the MAHA movement and concerned moms. And whenever Trump sells out public health to the highest industry bidder, there's no bigger apologist than his phony health secretary, RFK Jr."
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Heinrich, Booker Push 'No Immunity for Glyphosate' Bill as Supreme Court Weighs Monsanto Case
Sen. Cory Booker said it "will overturn President Trump's executive order that prioritizes pesticide company profits over public health and ensure that people who have gotten cancer from glyphosate can seek justice."
Apr 29, 2026
On the heels of the US Supreme Court hearing arguments in Monsanto Company v. Durnell, Sens. Martin Heinrich and Cory Booker on Wednesday introduced legislation intended to overturn President Donald Trump's executive order mandating production of the highly contentious weedkiller at the center of that case.
"Since my time serving as a City Council member in Newark, I have seen firsthand the devastating harm caused by toxic chemicals in our communities," Booker (D-NJ) said in a statement. "That is why, this week at a rally in front of the Supreme Court, I stood with cancer survivors, activists, and Make America Healthy Again advocates to protest against providing a liability shield to foreign corporations that are poisoning the American people."
"It is why I filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court supporting Americans who developed cancer after using a toxic pesticide in a case that will determine whether thousands harmed by glyphosate can have their day in court—and why I am a proud co-sponsor of the No Immunity for Glyphosate Act," he added, "legislation that will overturn President Trump's executive order that prioritizes pesticide company profits over public health and ensure that people who have gotten cancer from glyphosate can seek justice in federal court."
Despite Trump's campaign promise to "Make America Healthy Again," he has frequently served the pesticide industry, including by siding with Bayer—which bought Monsanto in 2018—in the case before the high court, and by signing the February order invoking the Defense Production Act for glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup.
Specifically, Trump directed US Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins to ensure "a continued and adequate supply of elemental phosphorus and glyphosate-based herbicides." He also noted that domestic producers are required to comply with his order, and under the federal law he invoked, those doing so have broad legal immunity.
Just before Trump's order, Bayer announced a proposed settlement for the tens of thousands of people who say exposure to Roundup caused their cancer. Still, the company and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continue to claim glyphosate is safe, despite the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer classifying it as probably carcinogenic to humans over a decade ago.
The case before the Supreme Court stems from a lawsuit and a resulting verdict in favor of John Durnell, a Missouri man whose blood cancer is in remission after multiple rounds of chemotherapy. The justices' decision could determine whether many others are able to continue pursuing cases against Bayer. Republicans are also pushing to include a "liability shield" for pesticide manufacturers in the next Farm Bill.
Meanwhile, Booker and Heinrich's (D-NM) bill states that "no federal funds may be obligated or expended to implement, administer, or enforce" Trump's glyphosate order, and "any person, or the estate, survivors, or legal representative of such person, who suffers or has suffered physical injury, illness, disease, or death caused, in whole or in part, by exposure to elemental phosphorus or a glyphosate-based herbicide manufactured, distributed, sold, or supplied within the United States, may bring a civil action in an appropriate district court of the United States against any covered entity."
Heinrich said Wednesday that "juries across the country are looking at the evidence and delivering verdicts: Exposure to glyphosate can cause cancer. The Supreme Court cannot and should not allow these verdicts to be overturned."
"My constituents' health and safety comes first. And I will not stand by while President Trump gives immunity to those who put my constituents' health and safety at risk," he added. "That’s why I’m proud to lead the No Immunity for Glyphosate Act, legislation that will restore accountability, uphold court rulings, and protect the health and well-being of families in New Mexico and across the country."
The bill is also backed by Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.). Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) introduced companion legislation in February, just after Trump's order. The lead sponsors in the House of Representatives also are working to strip the immunity shield from the Farm Bill and joined Booker at "The People v. Poison" rally outside the Supreme Court on Monday.
The next day, another House Democrat, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), questioned EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin about the immunity shield in Trump's order, as well as his meeting with Bayer's CEO last year and some related internal emails.
"AOC smoked him in there," Drop Site News reporter Julian Andreone said on social media. "Red-handed."
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