Amid fierce opposition to the Cancer Gag Act, new state lobbying declaration records released this week reveal that Bayer spent more on lobbying in 2025 than any other year on record. In the two years since first introducing the Cancer Gag Act, Bayer has nearly doubled the last decade of its lobbying spending in Iowa. For the second year in a row, grassroots opposition kept the Cancer Gag Act from passing this session. An overwhelming majority of Iowa voters oppose the bill, which seeks to shield pesticide corporations from health related lawsuits.

Food & Water Watch analysis of publicly available lobbying declaration records going back to 2008 found that:

• Since June 2024, Bayer has spent $123,250 lobbying in Iowa — more than any other year on record. Bayer’s Modern Ag Alliance industry front group spent an additional $10K in support of the Cancer Gag Act.
• Since the Cancer Gag Act was first introduced in the 2023-2024 lobbying cycle, Bayer has spent $209,750, and registered 7 lobbyists in Iowa. That is 5x what they spent in the two cycles prior; and nearly double what Bayer spent lobbying in Iowa in the decade prior from 2013-2023.
• Bayer lobbying far surpasses the quantity and pace of other major statehouse players — spending nearly $70K more than Summit Carbon Solutions in half the time. In the four years since Summit launched in 2021, the corporation has registered 6 lobbyists and spent $144,000 lobbying in Iowa for its controversial carbon pipeline.

Food & Water Watch Iowa Organizer Jennifer Breon said:

“Bayer is wasting its money in Des Moines — new numbers only reveal the depths of its desperation. Iowans are struggling through a mounting public health crisis with industrial agriculture at its core. We will not allow Big Ag corporations like Bayer to leverage their ill-begotten pesticide profits to boost private coffers at the expense of the sick.

“The Iowa legislature must continue to listen to the people, not the money: the Cancer Gag Act has no place in Iowa.”

Background

Bayer’s push to limit liability comes as the corporation has spent over $11 billion settling more than 100,000 cancer lawsuits related to their Roundup product, whose active ingredient glyphosate is under investigation as a possible carcinogen. Roundup is widely used in Iowa: In any given year, more than half the state is covered in the pesticide. Iowa is one of only two states in the country with rising cancer rates — the Iowa Cancer Registry predicted 21,000 new, invasive cancer diagnoses last year, and 6,100 cancer-related deaths.

Bayer is pushing Cancer Gag Act legislation in state houses across the country. This year, copycat bills failed in nine states, and passed in two. Reintroduction of the federal version of this legislation, the Agricultural Uniformity Labeling Act, is expected this year.