The United States is drowning in pesticides, and the harmful impacts are pervasive. More than 90% of people in the U.S. have signs of these toxic chemicals in their blood or urine. In agricultural states, farmers and rural communities are facing illnesses like cancer and Parkinson’s, linked to the chemicals sprayed onto fields — chemicals that pesticide corporations insist are safe. 

More than a hundred thousand people have sought justice through our legal system for health harms associated with chemicals in pesticides. But now, the pesticide industry is fighting to silence them by making the Cancer Gag Act the law of the land. This would prevent farmers, workers, and anyone affected from exercising their right to hold companies accountable for failing to warn them of health risks.

Now, the same industry that hooked America on pesticides is deploying massive funds to silence its critics. Bayer, the corporation behind Roundup, the world’s most pervasive pesticide, is at the helm, with the Cancer Gag Act at the center of its tactics.

But despite Bayer’s war chest, it’s fighting a losing battle. After failing to pass legislation in nine states and counting, the industry is turning to Washington, spending millions to push a federal Cancer Gag Act through Congress.

Bayer Works to Make Sick People Pay for Harms Linked to Its Product

In 2015, the World Health Organization found that glyphosate — the main ingredient in Bayer’s Roundup pesticide — is “probably carcinogenic.” While other countries have restricted and even banned the chemical, U.S. use has only increased. 

An abundance of studies links glyphosate to a cancer called Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. (Even more evidence links pesticides to illnesses including cancer, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s.) And thanks to industry meddling — from ghostwriting scientific studies to pressuring regulators — the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s glyphosate health risk assessment has remained frozen in time. 

The EPA designates the chemical as “not carcinogenic to humans” despite all scientific evidence to the contrary. (Notably, after a federal court determined that the EPA’s latest glyphosate risk assessment was legally deficient, the agency withdrew its 2020 interim decision that glyphosate had “no risks of concern” when used as directed by EPA labels.)

As a result of underregulation, lawsuits against Bayer have been the main avenue for justice for impacted Americans. And in recent years, Bayer has paid more than $11 billion in settlement money to thousands of sick plaintiffs. It’s also preparing $15 billion for future settlements and seeing falling profits, in part due to declining Roundup sales.

Make no mistake, Bayer brought this on itself. When it bought Monsanto, the original maker of Roundup, it knew it was taking on a huge liability. But now it’s scheming to change the rules of the game to defend its bottom line. Enter the Cancer Gag Act — designed to make us bear the costs of its harmful product.

The Cancer Gag Act would stop lawsuits so long as pesticide warning labels meet EPA guidelines. But the agency’s labeling requirements focus on acute risks rather than long-term impacts like cancer. Further, risk assessments are based on information provided by the manufacturer, presenting a major conflict of interest, and ignore cumulative impacts from exposure to multiple chemicals.

Bayer’s Cancer Gag Acts Fail in the States

In recent years, Bayer has pushed versions of the Cancer Gag Act in a dozen state legislatures. But most people who learn about these bills see through them in an instant. These Cancer Gag Acts are shameless attempts to safeguard Bayer’s cashflow, while leaving vulnerable people suffering with terrible illnesses without recourse.

In 2025, the bills failed in Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Wyoming. (Bills passed in Georgia and North Dakota; a twelfth is still pending in the North Carolina legislature.)

This overwhelming opposition overcame big spending from Bayer to influence state lawmakers and the public, especially in Iowa, a major battleground state for the Cancer Gag Act.

We found that since the Cancer Gag Act was first introduced in Iowa during the 2023-2024 lobbying cycle, Bayer has spent $209,750. That’s five times what they spent in the two cycles prior and nearly double what Bayer spent lobbying in Iowa in ten whole years (2013-2023).

We also found that the Modern Ag Alliance, an industry front group, spent over $250,000 in the past two years to flood the state’s radio waves with more than 3,300 ads promoting glyphosate.

Iowa is key to Bayer’s bottom line — in any given year, more than half the state is covered in Roundup. But for Iowans struggling with industrial agriculture’s public health impacts, the numbers tell a different story — Iowa is one of only two states in the nation with rising cancer rates and has the second-highest cancer incidence overall. 

There, people power beat corporate cash. Nearly 9 in 10 Iowa voters opposed the bill, and Food & Water Watch organizers worked with impacted residents and grassroots allies to defeat it. Facing failure in statehouses nationwide, Bayer is expected to redouble their pressure campaign in Congress.

The Cancer Gag Act Fight Goes National

With so many resounding failures at the state level, Bayer and its allies have descended onto Washington. This year, we can expect Congress members to reintroduce the “Agricultural Labeling Uniformity Act” (formerly HR 4288) — the federal Cancer Gag Act. 

This bill would stop state and local authorities from warning residents about pesticides’ potential harms, keeping the public in the dark. It would also shield companies from lawsuits, as long as they follow EPA labeling guidelines — which we already know don’t give enough warning about long-term risks. 

Specifically, the bill would:

1. Prevent state and local governments from adopting labeling or packaging requirements that add to or change the EPA’s labeling requirements;
2. Forbid courts from holding companies liable for failing to comply with state or local labeling requirements, including warning requirements, beyond those imposed by EPA; and
3. Essentially freeze the EPA’s guidance as it is, in all its insufficiency, even with emerging evidence of harm. It would prevent the EPA from issuing guidance, regulation, or labeling inconsistent with either a human health assessment or a carcinogenicity classification under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act — flawed assessments that only happen every 15 years. 

In short, the federal Cancer Gag Act would eliminate our access to information about pesticides’ serious health risks, while also eliminating recourse for folks who get sick. It would also override the people-power wins against the state bills.

Bayer’s Multi-Pronged War for Pesticide Immunity

The pesticide industry isn’t just trying to pass the Cancer Gag Act itself. In July, House Republicans moved forward a 2026 appropriations bill meant to set annual funding levels for agencies — and it snuck in related language. With narrow exceptions, this rider proposes to block the EPA from improving warning labels on pesticides, regardless of new research on harms; in essence, freezing in place today’s ineffective warning labels. 

The House draft of the 2023 Farm Bill also included language to preempt state and local authorities from regulating pesticides at all. 

Additionally, eleven state attorneys general have petitioned the EPA to change its labeling requirements. They want any state labeling requirements that don’t follow the EPA’s health risk assessment to constitute “misbranding” — a violation of federal pesticide law. 

In short, the pesticide industry wants to be held accountable only to the EPA’s current risk assessments, which themselves are inadequate and shaped by the industry. 

Moreover, we can expect pesticide regulation to get worse, not better, in the coming years. Trump’s EPA Administrator, Lee Zeldin, has made fervent commitments to deregulation, prioritizing corporations over public health.

Bayer Spends Big on the Cancer Gag Act

The pesticide industry is sparing no expense to boost this dangerous legislation. Bayer has lobbied the U.S. House and Senate, the EPA, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. We found that in the ten quarters starting in 2023 through the second quarter of 2025, Bayer spent up to $21.3 million on federal lobbying efforts, including on the Cancer Gag Act and the Farm Bill. That’s a 43% increase compared to their total spending for the ten quarters before that.¹From the second half of 2020 through the end of 2022.

This money has gone a long way, even giving the company influence over the exact language in the Farm Bill. Congressional bill authors solicited Bayer’s lobbyists’ input on the Cancer Gag Act, and the lobbyists helped to shop the bill around Congress.

But the industry and its cronies in Congress know this is unpopular. That’s why Bayer has tried multiple times to sneak Cancer Gag Act language into other bills, including ones as unrelated as a Pentagon spending bill.

At the same time, we found that Bayer’s Employee PAC and its state affiliate donated over $700,000 to federal and state campaigns, with nearly $70,000 going to sponsors or co-sponsors of the federal Cancer Gag Act.

Congress: Choose People Over Pesticides!

At the state and federal level, passage of the Cancer Gag Act will mean EPA labeling and regulations stay outdated and inadequate. It would also ensure companies never have to warn people about the risks of pesticide use.

This is a clear handout to the pesticide industry and a bailout of corporate giants’ bottom line. Those already crushed under the weight of hospital bills and fatal illnesses will pay the price for it.

What Congress is currently considering — from the federal Cancer Gag Act itself to related language hidden in the appropriations bill — is whether or not they’ll sell out sick Americans for corporations’ profits. 

Our leaders must make the right choice and reject the Cancer Gag Act in all forms. And we’re calling on Congress to support Sen. Cory Booker’s Pesticide Injury Accountability Act. 

This bill would ensure that pesticide manufacturers can be held responsible for the harm caused by their toxic products. Specifically, it would amend the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act to create a federal right of action — a direct pathway to bring suit in federal court — for anyone who is harmed by a toxic pesticide.

At a time when the health risks of Big Ag’s pesticides are becoming ever clearer and more urgent, passing this law is essential. The corporations responsible for this public health crisis must be held accountable. State and local governments must retain their authority to follow the science and warn their residents. And affected people must be able to seek justice.