Updated April 3, 2025 at 12:30 p.m.:
The Iowa House has declined to advance a bill shielding pesticide companies from certain health-related lawsuits ahead of a key legislative deadline this week.
Speaker Pat Grassley, R-New Hartford, said some House Republicans are concerned with the public perception of the bill, which he said is just about correctly labeling pesticides.
“At this point in time, we don’t have the support to move something forward,” Grassley told reporters Thursday. “You know, obviously there’s still more session to go, but right now, where we sit today, I don’t see the support.”
Statehouse leaders have various ways of reviving so-called “dead” bills later in the session.
The bill narrowly passed the Iowa Senate last week, but the House did not advance the bill through a committee ahead of the “funnel” deadline.
Senate President Amy Sinclair, R-Allerton, said it’s disappointing that the House didn’t advance the bill, and she believes pesticide companies shouldn’t be sued for following labeling laws.
“I suppose the House can be entitled to their wrong opinion,” she said.
House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst, D-Windsor Heights, said she’s “thrilled to see that hopefully we won’t be debating that this year.”
“I think it’s pretty telling that even Republicans in the House agree that giving immunity to pesticide companies in a state that has skyrocketing cancer rates is not a good idea,” she said.
Original story published April 2, 2025:
Three years ago, Jim Heuberger of Mason City was diagnosed with cancer. He said his doctor told him the rare type of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma could’ve been caused by exposure to Roundup, the popular weedkiller.
Heuberger said he used Roundup for over 40 years — first on his family farm, and then at his tree nursery in Sheffield.
“We weren’t too concerned with it because it seemed as if it should have been a chemical that wasn’t that severe for you,” he said. “Didn’t have any skull and crossbones on it or anything like that.”
Two years ago, Heuberger sued Monsanto, which is owned by Bayer, alleging the company failed to warn him that exposure to glyphosate-based Roundup could cause cancer.
Bayer denies that Roundup can cause cancer. But more than 180,000 people have filed lawsuits similar to Heuberger’s, and the company has paid about $10 billion to settle many of them.
And this year, Bayer has been pushing bills in at least 11 states, including Iowa, to shield itself and other pesticide companies from cancer lawsuits.
As Heuberger’s case moves through the courts, he said his weakened immune system has led to several hospital stays for pneumonia, and he’s missed out on time with his kids and grandkids for fear of getting sick. He said he decided to sue because he doesn’t think it’s right for a big company to keep making money off of people who don’t fully understand the risks of using Roundup.
“You know, if we don’t do something about it … when will it end?” Heuberger asked. “It’s not going to end until somebody puts up a fight against it.”
Bill would block ‘failure to warn’ claims in pesticide injury lawsuits
Future “failure to warn” claims like Heuberger’s would be prohibited under a bill that narrowly passed the Iowa Senate last month, as long as the pesticide or herbicide maker follows federal labeling requirements.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has found glyphosate is unlikely to cause cancer, and a court has ordered the EPA to review that finding.
Brad Epperly, an Iowa-based lobbyist hired by Bayer, said that determination means the company isn’t allowed to include a cancer warning on Roundup’s EPA-approved label, so it shouldn’t be sued for not putting a cancer warning on the label.
He said the bill would still allow people who get sick from pesticides to sue using other legal claims.
“Never before these pesticide lawsuits was 'duty to warn' utilized in such a way so the manufacturer’s in a catch-22 situation,” Epperly said at a subcommittee hearing. "So we’d ask, simply support a very simple bill, which is merely addressing the labeling requirements. The label is the law.”
Opponents of the Bayer-backed bill say it would effectively give legal immunity to pesticide companies.
But the International Agency for Research on Cancer has concluded that glyphosate is probably carcinogenic. Opponents of the Bayer-backed bill point out the EPA told California regulators in 2022 that it was open to including that information on product labels along with the EPA's findings if glyphosate manufacturers requested it.
They also say the bill would effectively give legal immunity to pesticide companies.
Heuberger’s lawyer, James Cook, said there cannot be a viable lawsuit against Bayer without a failure to warn claim — even when someone can prove their cancer is linked to Roundup.
“Because there’s no proof that it didn’t work as intended,” he said. “There’s no proof that it’s a defective product. The only way to prove liability is through failure to warn.”
Access to justice vs. access to glyphosate
The debate over the bill in Iowa has involved lawyers and a lot of legal jargon, but Iowans on both sides of it say the bill would have very real effects on the state.
Critics have named it the “cancer gag act.”
At a protest at the Statehouse in February, Iowans told stories of how they and their family members were diagnosed with cancer, and they raised concerns about the potential role of ag chemicals.
“Our health, our families, our communities, are more important than Bayer’s profits,” protesters shouted in the Iowa Capitol.
They said shielding pesticide companies from lawsuits doesn’t make sense when Iowa has the second highest rate of new cancers in the country.
“The cancer gag act is about silencing Iowans who have been harmed,” Michaelyn Mankel, Iowa organizer with Food & Water Watch, said at the protest. “It’s about making it harder for Iowans to pursue a lawsuit and be made whole.”
A Facebook ad from the Bayer-founded Modern Ag Alliance urges farmers to “take a stand” and push for the bill.
On the other hand, radio and digital ads in Iowa claim that failure to pass this bill would threaten the production of Roundup in Iowa and the U.S. as a whole. A Facebook ad from the Bayer-founded Modern Ag Alliance urges farmers to “take a stand” and push for the bill.
“Iowa farmers feed America, but the litigation industry’s attacks on glyphosate, farmers’ go-to crop protection tool, will leave us all in a world of hurt,” the voiceover says.
Pottawattamie County farmer Kevin Ross, who is featured in one such ad, testified in support of the bill at the Statehouse.
“Iowa’s economy relies on its agriculture, and it is of utmost importance that the Legislature works to preserve farmers’ access to American-made glyphosate, so that Iowa’s ag industry, economy and families can continue to thrive,” he said.
Sen. Mike Bousselot, R-Ankeny, addressed those claims on IPR’s River to River.
“The bill is not about whether or not there’s access to glyphosate or not,” said Bousselot, who led the measure's passage in the Senate. “The bill is about the fact that if a company labels their product correctly and follows federal law, then this bill, all it would do is say you can’t sue and win [saying] that they labeled it incorrectly.”
Rep. Austin Baeth, D-Des Moines, said on River to River that the bill would ban Iowans’ access to justice if they get sick from pesticides. He said there is more cancer in rural areas where Iowans potentially have more exposure to farm chemicals.
“Science is never 100%,” Baeth said. “But if we already have signals for harm, I don’t want to find out 20 years from now that it was, in fact, harmful, and the people down my block are dead because we failed to act.”
It is now up to Republicans in the Iowa House to decide if they will pass the bill. Georgia is the only state to have passed a similar bill, and it is awaiting the governor’s signature in that state.
Editor's note: This story was updated with additional information on April 3, 2025 at 7:45 p.m.
