New Food & Water Watch research released today catalogues Roundup-producer Bayer’s national push to pass Cancer Gag Act legislation that would shield pesticide manufacturers from health related lawsuits. The push comes as the corporation has spent over $11 billion settling more than 100,000 cancer lawsuits related to Roundup’s active ingredient glyphosate, which the World Health Organization deems “probably carcinogenic to humans”.

Copycat bills were introduced in twelve states this year to robust opposition, failing in nine and passing in two (the bill is still pending in North Carolina). Reintroduction of the federal bill, first introduced in 2023 as the Agricultural Labeling Uniformity Act, is expected this year. House Republicans furthered related language to prevent EPA from improving warning labels on dangerous pesticides, in an appropriations bill vote just last month.

Food & Water Watch found that from January 2023-June 2025:

• Bayer spent over $21 million on federal lobbying efforts, including on the federal Cancer Gag Act and Farm Bill. This represents a 43 percent increase in spending from the prior ten quarters.
• Bayer’s Employee PAC and state affiliates contributed over $700,000 to federal and state campaigns, with over a quarter of that occurring in the first half of 2025. Nearly $70,000 of this went to sponsors or co-sponsors of the Agricultural Labeling Uniformity Act, who received more in the first half of 2025 than in all of 2024. And over $250,000 of this went to candidates in states where a version of the Cancer Gag Act was introduced in 2025. Missouri and Iowa saw the most contributions among these states, with $67,760 and $56,000 respectively. The bill failed in both places.

State level spending is also on the rise. In the last year alone, Bayer spent more on lobbying than any other year on record in Iowa, a key battleground state for this legislation where 89% of voters oppose the bill. In the two years since first introducing the Cancer Gag Act, Bayer has nearly doubled the last decade of its lobbying spending in Iowa. The bill failed.

Food & Water Watch Researcher Kat Ruane issued the following statement:

“Some of the world’s largest corporations are spending big money to conceal a simple fact: pesticides are dangerous. Roundup producer Bayer’s fingerprints are all over a desperate push to avoid being held accountable if their products make us sick. While industry throws everything at the wall to see what sticks, public opposition to the Cancer Gag Act is only growing. Congress and state houses across the country must stay strong and side with the people, not the money: No Cancer Gag Act.”