Kansas lawmakers were set to vote on a bill this week backed by Bayer that would prevent people from suing pesticide manufacturers for not warning them that their products could cause cancer or other illnesses, as the German company readies a potential $7 billion-plus settlement for thousands of lawsuits over the weedkiller Roundup.
The Kansas legislation is one of about a dozen Bayer-supported bills introduced in state legislatures. It comes just weeks after the company announced a proposed $7.25 billion settlement that would resolve most of approximately 65,000 outstanding lawsuits related to Roundup.
Bayer acquired Roundup as part of its $63 billion purchase of agrochemical company Monsanto in 2018, and with it an avalanche of litigation from people who say the product caused them to develop cancer. The company is supporting state and federal legislative efforts to try to head off further Roundup-related litigation, a company spokesperson said.
So far Bayer has had mixed success. Two bills have passed in North Dakota and Georgia; the outlook for the Kansas bill is uncertain.
Opponents of the Kansas bill distrust the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s assessment that glyphosate pesticides such as Bayer’s Roundup product are not likely to cause cancer, while proponents fear that the widely used pesticide will be made more expensive or pulled from the market, negatively affecting many businesses in the heavily agricultural state.
