MAHA Fail: EPA Approves Slew Of New Pesticides With 'Forever Chemicals,' As Bayer Is 'Turning Over Every Stone’ To ‘Significantly Contain’ Glyphosate Lawsuits In 2026
“This administration did what every administration does, which is side with Big Ag. When pressed, they absolutely folded."
2026 is shaping up to be a critical year for pesticide legislation in the United States as Bayer and its lobbyist groups work to ease regulations and reduce litigation. With some success already seen at the state level, and with the Trump administration and the “Make America Healthy Again” movement having already shown signs of backtracking and hypocrisy, broader pesticide use in the U.S. could be here to stay.
Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) quietly approved ten new pesticide products that contain so-called “forever chemicals” in them.
Per a press release published on November 20th:
Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) registered ten products containing the new active ingredient isocycloseram, a broad-spectrum contact insecticide proposed for use on agricultural crops, turf and ornamentals, as well as indoor and outdoor uses for commercial, industrial and domestic sites. This new active ingredient will give farmers an additional tool to help manage crops and grow more food for our country.
No human health risks of concern were identified when isocycloseram is used according to the registered labels.
EPA preliminarily concluded that the proposed use of isocycloseram may affect insect pollinators from spray application and aquatic invertebrates from spray, seed and soil treatments. It can also cause chronic risks to birds and mammals ingesting treated rapeseed.
Isocycloseram is a perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substance, better known as PFAS or "forever chemicals."
Food & Wine magazine listed some of the health effects of this chemical:
The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) explained that the EPA's own memorandum on Isocycloseram highlighted the potential dangers of this new pesticide, including "reduced testicle size, lower sperm count, and liver toxicity." The center also noted that while the memorandum calls the chemical "safe," it also states that it should not be applied anywhere near livestock, pets, or children.
A 2022 evaluation by the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority, conducted on rats, rabbits, and dogs, found that the ingredient can increase red blood cell production, cause adrenal gland toxicity, lead to weight fluctuations, result in skeletal malformations in fetuses, and cause testicular degeneration.
As Chemical & Engineering News explained, the ingredient has a half-life of over three years, meaning that roughly 50% of what is sprayed remains after this time. However, Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity, also told the publication that the pesticide’s active ingredients can degrade into trifluoroacetic acid, which can stay in the environment for more than 100 years.
Donley said in an added statement:
“To approve more PFAS pesticides amid the growing awareness of the serious, long-term dangers from these forever chemicals is absurdly shortsighted. The undeniable reality is that the Trump administration is knowingly putting the nation’s children at greater risk of developing serious reproductive and liver harms for generations to come.”
Just two weeks prior, the EPA also approved another pesticide chemical called cyclobutrifluram, another PFAS, to be used “on turf, ornamentals, and romaine lettuce, as well as cotton and soybean seed,” the EPA said in a statement.
The CBD warned that “Cyclobutrifluram is known to break down into a smaller forever chemical called trifluoroacetic acid, or TFA, which is thought to be one of the most pervasive PFAS water contaminants in the world. TFA comes from many sources, but recent research has highlighted the significant role pesticides play in water contamination. Researchers believe the world is exceeding what’s known as a “planetary boundary threat” with TFA, where societal health harms may quickly become irreversible.”
On top of this, the EPA has already signaled that it intends on approving another pesticide this year, epyrifenacil, yet another PFAS, to be used canola, corn, soybean and wheat. The government shutdown delayed some of the approvals.
These approvals, and expectedly more to come this year, fly in the face of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s and MAHA movement’s supposed plans to crackdown on a food and water supply that has been doused with these chemicals.
When President Trump announced he was selecting RFK Jr. to lead HHS, he stated:
“The Safety and Health of all Americans is the most important role of any Administration, and HHS will play a big role in helping ensure that everybody will be protected from harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceutical products, and food additives that have contributed to the overwhelming Health Crisis in this Country.
“Mr. Kennedy will restore these Agencies to the traditions of Gold Standard Scientific Research, and beacons of Transparency, to end the Chronic Disease epidemic, and to Make America Great and Healthy Again!”
The MAHA Report, published in May of last year, dedicated an entire section to “The Cumulative Load of Chemicals in our Environment” and the deleterious effects they have had on children.
Taken from the MAHA Report:
Children are exposed to numerous chemicals, such as heavy metals, PFAS, pesticides, and, phthalates, via their diet, textiles, indoor air pollutants, and consumer products. Children’s unique behaviors and developmental physiology make them particularly vulnerable to potential adverse health effects from these cumulative exposures, many of which have no historical precedent in our environment or biology.
The report also noted “corporate influence” as “a significant portion of environmental toxicology and epidemiology studies are conducted by private corporations. Reports in 2023 indicate that the largest pesticide manufacturers spent billions on research initiatives. Limited comparisons between industry-funded research versus non-industry studies have raised concerns over potential biases in industry-funded research.”
However, their report appeared to acknowledge that the administration was limited in what it could do to address widespread pesticide use because industrial farmers are so dependent on them.
American farmers rely on these products, and actions that further regulate or restrict crop protection tools beyond risk-based and scientific processes set forth by Congress must involve thoughtful consideration of what is necessary for adequate protection, alternatives, and cost of production.
Precipitous changes in agricultural practices could have an adverse impact on American agriculture and the domestic and global food supply. The federal government will continue to regularly review the safety of these important crop protection tools.
Translation: the status quo will remain the status quo.
Big Ag Wins Again
In a follow-up report — Make Our Children Healthy Again — a 20-page action plan quietly published in September backtracked on tighter regulations on pesticide producers.
AgFunder News reported at the time:
The final report from the Make America Healthy Again Commission doesn’t recommend stricter regulation of ultra-processed foods and pesticides, two top goals of the MAHA movement that fueled the rise of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Instead, the report — released by U.S. Health Secretary Kennedy today — mainly advises more research and voluntary industry action on ultra-processed food, synthetic food dyes, and pesticide use. The outcome was widely expected after a leaked draft in August indicated that the Trump administration had shifted away from linking specific chemicals, including the pesticides glyphosate and atrazine, to chronic health issues.
“The report has a lot of ideas for actions that really could improve health, but is short on specifics and weak on regulatory action,” Marion Nestle, PhD, M.P.H., Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health Emerita at New York University, told AgFunderNews. “Its overriding message is still ‘more research needed.’ It does not say nearly enough about what needs to be done to improve the diets of America’s children.”
“The big issue for me is what are they going to do about food marketing to children? They will “explore” “potential” guidelines for industry. Really? That’s all? This is such an opportunity. I sure wish they had taken it.”
According to the report, “USDA will prioritize precision nutrition research,” something that NIH is already doing, and which some public health experts view as “the antithesis of public health research, the kind that really will make Americans healthier.”
The outlet noted that the report signaled that “The final report could be seen as a win for some parts of the farming and agrichemical industry, which defended the federal government’s pesticide approval process and argued that banning the tools could threaten farmers’ businesses.”
The final paragraph of the report states:
“USDA and EPA will launch a partnership with private-sector innovators to ensure continued investment in new approaches and technologies to allow even more targeted and precise pesticide applications. This can support increased crop productivity and reduce the total amount of pesticides needed.
“These partnerships should focus on precision application methods, including targeted drone applications, computer-assisted targeted spray technology, robotic monitoring, and related innovations.”
Lori Ann Burd, senior attorney and director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Environmental Health Program, told AgFunderNews in a comment:
“This administration did what every administration does, which is side with Big Ag. When pressed, they absolutely folded.”
Pesticidepalooza
The MAHA hypocrisy has opened the doorway for an even broader battle over pesticide approvals and litigation in 2026.
Last year, North Dakota and Georgia passed laws that essentially make it incredibly difficult to sue big-ag companies such as Bayer over their pesticide toxicity and health harms, particularly in the case of glyphosate. Many other states have been debating doing something identical, though some bills have failed while others have been placed in limbo.
The WinePress noted at the time that lobbyist groups for Bayer, by their own explicit admission, have been working very hard to get laws passed that prevent the company from being sued, after being wracked with lawsuits and judgement orders that have forced billions of dollars in payouts and reparations.
But this year, the federal battleground will prove pivotal in the war, especially over two pesticide ingredients: glyphosate and dicamba; Investigate Midwest refers to this as “Pesticidepalooza.”
The ag outlet wrote:
Bayer has been dying the slow death of thousands of paper cuts from successful litigants using state laws to claim federally approved labels on Roundup herbicide failed to warn consumers that usage potentially can cause non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
The Environmental Protection Agency begged to differ and seven years ago issued a ruling that it “will no longer approve product labels claiming glyphosate is known to cause cancer,” calling the World Health Organization Internal Agency for Research on Cancer assessment on glyphosate “a false claim that does not meet the labeling requirements of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This ruling was during the first Trump administration in 2019.
For its part, Bayer says the FIFRA does not legally allow the company to produce labels that are contrary to the EPA’s verdict on glyphosate.
That should have been the end of the story. But FIFRA also flatly prohibits the sale of any herbicide that is “misbranded” by failure to contain warnings or caution statements that may be necessary to protect health and environment.
Unfortunately for Bayer, state courts across the nation have allowed misbranded lawsuits to proceed. Bayer has already paid out roughly $11 billion to settle about 100,000 cases. Some 61,000 cases are still pending.
But Bayer caught a break last August in Schaffner v. Monsanto Corporation when an appellate court concluded “that the alleged state-law duty to include the Cancer Warning on Roundup’s label (the ‘Pa. Duty to Warn’) imposes requirements that are different from those imposed under FIFRA, and that it is therefore preempted by FIFRA.”
Bayer wasted no time in asking the Supreme Court to agree with that assessment and it has a pending petition for a writ of certiorari in the Supreme Court. The U.S. Solicitor General is backing Bayer’s legal argument.
A Bayer victory could potentially make all pending glyphosate failure-to-warn litigation mute.
The EPA’s bumbling, stumbling efforts to register dicamba-based pesticides for use on cotton and soybean crops have been slam dunked twice in the federal courts, first by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in 2020 and then the U.S. District Court of Arizona in 2024.
Both courts concluded EPA’s dicamba analysis and research was significantly lacking — failing both to understand some risks or acknowledge others. A twofer casting serious doubts on EPA’s sincerity and motivations about whether the agency is serving the public or Big Ag.
Now EPA is saying it intends to unconditionally register dicamba along with some new restrictions that it pinkie swears will prevent the herbicide from drifting all over the countryside and damaging other people’s property.
In case you’re scoring at home, an unconditional registration is good for 15 years unless it is vacated by a court ruling.
While all this plays out, the clock is ticking for soybean and cotton farmers trying to plan their 2026 input needs. It is highly likely should EPA grant an unconditional registration it will immediately be challenged in the federal courts on an expedited schedule.
This ‘palooza’ will be a big point of contention in 2026.
As for more details pertaining to the pending legislation in regard to glyphosate — last year, H.R.4754 - Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2026, was introduced in August; which provides appropriations, new funding, and regulatory changes to the EPA and other departments.
The bill could ultimately shield Bayer from tens of thousands of Roundup cancer lawsuits by blocking new pesticide label warnings. No action has been taken on it, yet, but Investigate Midwest said in October that “Bayer AG wants no one to know, but the pesticide manufacturer is potentially just two votes away from the golden ticket it has wanted ever since acquiring Saint Louis-based Monsanto in 2018.”
“Section 453 Pesticides” of the bill reads:
None of the funds made available by this or any other Act may be used to issue or adopt any guidance or any policy, take any regulatory action, or approve any labeling or change to such labeling that is inconsistent with or in any respect different from the conclusion of—
(a) a human health assessment performed pursuant to the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (7 U.S.C. 136 et seq.); or
(b) a carcinogenicity classification for a pesticide.
Bayer spokesperson Brian Leake came out in a statement saying this is “a normal part of Bayer’s political engagement.” Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID) and chairman of the appropriations subcommittee that oversees environmental agencies, also tried to downplay the bill’s wording in a July hearing.
Midwest Investigate warned:
Should Section 453 become law the only pesticide labels permitted by FIFRA must be based on a carcinogenicity classification or human health assessment. And since EPA does not classify glyphosate as a carcinogen, “misbranded” lawsuits would become mute.
And if EPA wanted to change the label, Section 453 would require the agency to conduct a new assessment on whether glyphosate is a carcinogen, a process that can take at a minimum four years and sometimes longer than a decade.
In the meantime, Bayer will argue it can’t disclose potential harms that are different from the EPA-approved label — a label that currently discloses no potential cancer harm from glyphosate. What an irony.
It’s insidious.
And dangerous because Section 453 not only would apply to glyphosate, but some 57,000 other active pesticide products. What if independent research discovered new evidence of a pesticide’s danger? Too bad. Section 453 ties EPA’s hands, preventing new immediate public label warnings.
The bill would still have to get through the Senate…
But Bayer is dedicated to making sure they are no longer sued.
During the company’s Q2 earnings call last year, CEO Bill Anderson addressed their battles against litigation. He articulated that the company is determined to stop the costly lawsuits levied against them.
“Last week, we communicated settlements and significant provisioning to limit our exposure to the litigation industry. These decisions are part of our multi-pronged strategy to significantly contain litigation by the end of 2026, which we affirm today.
“Simply put, every decision we make has the goal of positioning the company to move past our litigation woes.
“Our strategy is multipronged, and we’re not dependent on a singular milestone like a positive SCOTUS decision. We also remain active outside of the courtroom. We welcome legislation at the state and federal level that reaffirms the authority of the US EPA.
“Beyond these measures, we continue to examine additional options to protect the company, and everything remains on the table. We remain acutely aware of the threat of this issue for US farmers, US consumers, and our company. This is an important time with numerous prongs of our strategy advancing toward important junctures. As we move forward, we’re making each decision with one broader goal in mind, narrowing the overall threat and bringing our company closer to containment.
“[…] I don't want to get into whether this is a turning point. I would simply say that we are, yes, we’re turning over every stone to make sure that we're executing on all of the various approaches that we've called out in the past, and we remain committed to substantially containing this litigation threat to the company by the end of next year.”
This pesticidepalooza comes as a recent Florida-state-backed study revealed that many popular supermarket breads, including USDA Organic labeled Dave’s Killer Bread, contained trace amounts of glyphosate in them.
As for dicamba, the EPA recently relaxed regulations on the chemical and revised their safety labels so it can be used commercially in more states.
Bayer, the same day the news was announced, introduced a new pesticide with this chemical in it, marketed as containing glyphosate-resistant weeds — a problem that was created by Bayer.
Read more about it here:
AUTHOR COMMENTARY
Jeremiah 8:15 We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of health, and behold trouble!
“Promises made, promises kept,” replies the redhat cultists.
Seriously, someone enlighten me: what “promises” has this godforsaken child-diddling protecting administration kept? Outside of the corporate tax cuts and the Stablecoin Genius Act — both of which are horrible — this administration has backtracked on literally everything.
I am not surprised that the administration and EPA are doing this. Trump 1.0 deregulated its policies on glyphosate. Do we not find it a ‘coincidence’ that Bayer bought Monsanto the year before, and then the Trump EPA pulled what they did?
If the Trump admin was willing to deregulate glyphosate use the first time, then approving a bunch of new ones is not surprising, nor is it surprising that Bayer is now ever so close to getting immunity that they have always dreamed of, and by proxy scores and scores of other companies; so that Americans can continue to be poisoned.
MAHA has been nothing but a gross embarrassment. ‘Oh, but Jacob, Steak N’ Shake is frying its seed oil-coated fries in beef tallow, and the big food companies (all of which BlackRock has a plenty of stake in, too) will be removing food dyes from their already toxic brews (so they claim).’ Whoop-de-dah-do!
Job 13:4 But ye are forgers of lies, ye are all physicians of no value.
What will the MAGA cult say when Bayer finally receives immunity from their crimes and killing? Of course, nothing.
Never trust a Kennedy!
Money talks and bull crap walks.
Ecclesiastes 10:19 A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry: but money answereth all things.
1 Timothy 6:9 But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. [10] For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
But don’t worry, Pfizer and Eli Lilly will soon have a pill for glyphosate poisoning…
The Lord Of Glory: The Detailed Guide To Who God Is – Available Now!
On one of his missionary journeys, the apostle Paul visited Athens, Greece, where he said he witnessed “the city wholly given to idolatry,” and who were “too superstitious” and worshipped a plurality of gods and deities, though the people acknowledged that there was still one God above all that was a mystery to them. When questioned by the philosophers …
[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).
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Total Betrayal. Not Surprising Considering The Skies Have Been Raining Aluminum and Barium Since The New Great BS Came To Town
"Whoop-de-dah-do! " indeed