Failure-to-Warn
In 2025, advocates expect some version of a failure-to-warn bill to be introduced in at least 21 states. For ease of reference, see links below for target resources based on Northwest, Plains, Midwest, West/Southwest, Southeast, and MidAltantic/Northeast regions.
Ongoing Public Health Crisis
Pesticide exposure has been attributed to heightened risk of severe health conditions, including but not limited to various cancers, neurological disorders, reproductive disorders, immunological disorders, and obesity.
According to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1,777,566 new cases of cancer were reported in 2021 (the latest year of available incidence data). Not all cancer cases are directly related to pesticides, however National Cancer Institute notes "[a]pproximately 40.5% of men and women will be diagnosed with cancer at some point during their lifetimes (based on 2017–2019 data)." Given that up to 93% of cancer diagnoses can be attributed to non-hereditary, environmental factors (National Institutes of Health), advocates raise the question of the long-term viability of pesticide dependence given the readily available alternative pest management practices. A 2022 study commissioned by Parkinson's Foundation found there was a 50% increase in expected annual diagnoses for Parkinson's Disease, with 90,000 new individuals diagnosed each year. Data from the CDC-led National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2021-2023) indicates that approximately four in ten Americans are obese.
Amidst the corresponding surges in chronic illnesses and severe health diagnoses of the past decades alongside the unprecedented increases in pesticide use around the nation, advocates raise the question of the long-term viability of pesticide dependence given the readily available alternative pest management practices.
History
Attacks on “failure-to-warn” liability claims are taking place in the wake of extraordinary jury verdicts against Bayer/Monsanto for harm caused by RoundupTM glyphosate and the company’s failure to have their case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court, after losing in the lower courts. The latest numbers indicate that Bayer-Monsanto alone has had to settle $11 billion for glyphosate use and exposure, prompting the industry to attack the right of those harmed to sue for the company’s failure to warn them about the product’s hazards.
Failure-to-warn/Pesticide immunity bills introduced in Iowa, Idaho, and Missouri in 2024 attempt to prohibit state civil tort law on this matter, making the limited EPA-registered label the final word on disclosure and effectively rendering legal disputes invalid under this claim. The bills were narrowly defeated.
Industry failure-to-warn immunity language was incorporated into the House GOP Farm bill draft released in May 2024, and is still being negotiated in Congress. The last version of the House Agriculture Committee bill voted out of committee on May 30, 2024 incorporates immunity language. Corporations would financially benefit from revoking this right to sue, as evident in a surge in state-level campaign spending in target states, based on reporting from U.S. Right to Know. In 2016, Bayer and Corteva contributed 5 percent of total PAC contributions to state campaigns. In 2024, this jumped to 30 percent.
According to Federal Election Commission (FEC), pesticide manufacturer-related political action committees (PACs) cumulatively contributed $1,708,186 to federal candidates from 2023 through 2024.
The industry’s campaign follows its playbook of going to state legislatures to seek relief after failing to win at the federal level, which is what was successfully achieved in the 1990’s when local authority to restrict pesticides under Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) was upheld by the Supreme Court. The industry convinced most states to preempt their local political subdivisions from adopting pesticide restrictions more stringent than the state.
In 1991, the Supreme Court specifically upheld the authority of local governments to restrict pesticides throughout their jurisdictions under federal pesticide law in Wisconsin Public Intervenor v. Mortier. (Bates v. Dow Agrosciences LLC, 544 U.S. 431 (2005))
The Court ruled that federal pesticide law does not prohibit or preempt local jurisdictions from restricting the use of pesticides more stringently than the federal government throughout their jurisdiction. According to Mortier, however, states may retain authority to take away local control.
After that loss, the industry went to every state legislature to do at the state level what it could not achieve at the federal level—preemption of local governments to adopt pesticide restrictions more stringent than the state and the federal government.