Tell Your State Legislators to Ban Carcinogenic Pesticides!

The U.S. Department of Justice, under President Donald Trump, is siding with pesticide manufacturers Bayer (Monsanto) and Syngenta (ChemChina) in an effort to block cancer victims from suing over exposure to glyphosate and atrazine. Both chemicals are described as carcinogenic, with the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer classifying glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen in 2015 and recently applying the same designation to atrazine. The administration is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that federal EPA labeling rules—which do not require cancer warnings—override state failure-to-warn lawsuits.

Many of the state attorneys general urging this action represent states with some of the highest cancer rates, particularly in the Corn Belt, where pesticide exposure is common. It contends that pesticide exposure is a major driver of these cancer rates and frames the federal government’s stance as abandoning affected communities. We need to take action at the state level, and ask our state legislators to ban glyphosate and atrazine.