Make American Healthy Again Commission won't target glyphosate

It’s fair to say Big Ag in general, and in particular, pesticide producers — most notably those that manufacture chlorpyrifos and glyphosate — have been freaking out over a Making America Healthy Again Commission strategy report due out later this summer.

On the surface, the concerns certainly seem justified. U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has fought against the pesticide industry for years, and he was one of Dewayne Johnson’s attorneys in a 2018 groundbreaking case against Roundup producer Monsanto.

In that case, a California jury found that Roundup contributed to Johnson’s non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and that Monsanto had a legal responsibility to provide a product warning label. Ultimately, Johnson received $78 million dollars in compensatory and punitive damages. But the verdict also opened a floodgate of cancer cases against Monsanto and then Bayer, which bought the company in 2018.

So when the POTUS signed an executive order this past February establishing the Make America Healthy Again Commission and tasked it with producing a report that, in part, shall “…assess the threat that potential over-utilization of medication, certain food ingredients, certain chemicals, and certain other exposures pose to children…,” herbicide producers’ panic levels were probably initially through the roof. DEFCON 1.

The MAHA Commission issued an introductory report in late May. And … it wasn’t an all-out assault on the pesticide industry. On the other hand, it didn’t do much to staunch the fears of Bayer and its herbicide producing kin.

The report noted that there are links between increases in childhood obesity, pre-diabetes, cancer, mental disorders and food allergies with the food people eat, the medications they take, and the chemicals they are exposed to.

Specifically, the MAHA report says that “more than 8 billion pounds of pesticides are used each year in food systems around the world, with the U.S. accounting for roughly 11% or more than 1 billion pounds,” and that “over 40,000 chemicals are registered for use in the U.S.” The report also asserts that “pesticides, microplastics, and dioxins are commonly found in the blood and urine of American children and pregnant women — some at alarming levels.”

It wasn’t a New York minute before Big Ag was all up in the MAHA Commission’s grill.

In the aftermath of the report’s release, Kennedy — the long-time crusader against agricultural chemicals — told the pesticide industry that it had nothing to worry about. Speaking at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing Kennedy testified, “I have said repeatedly throughout this process, that we cannot take any step that will put a single farmer in this country out of business. There’s a million farmers who rely on glyphosate. One hundred percent of corn in this country relies on glyphosate. We are not going to do anything to jeopardize that business model.”

The MAHA Commission is now in the process of producing a Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy due out in late summer and building on the May findings.

I’m sure Bayer executives are wondering whether it can take Kennedy at his word. But I think MAHA won’t upend Big Ag reliance on glyphosate.

First, it’s the Environmental Protection Agency, and not HSS, that sets limits on glyphosate and other pesticides. HSS oversees research EPA consults to regulate chemicals. EPA bent over backwards in its efforts to re-register glyphosate, but was sued by the Center for Food Safety, a case the feds lost. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled “that EPA did not adequately consider whether glyphosate causes cancer and shirked its duties under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).”

The ruling sent the EPA back to the drawing board to evaluate the merits of glyphosate.

But after the agency missed a 2022 glyphosate assessment deadline, Congress set a new October deadline for EPA to complete a new registration review of glyphosate. I expect the MAHA Commission won’t be eager to wade in on the ongoing controversy.

Second, Kennedy must also know that if he pushes too hard against glyphosate he’ll be facing political heat from Big Ag, as well as USDA Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, who publicly offered up a nothing burger after the MAHA Commission May release: “I look forward to continuing to work with Secretary Kennedy and other members of the MAHA Commission to improve our nation’s health.”

Behind the scenes, I assure you that if Kennedy flip-flops on glyphosate, Rollins will have no problem taking up the issue with POTUS. That’s a debate Kennedy would lose. Bigly.

No, if glyphosate were ever to go away it would not be because the feds put the kibosh on it, but because of a Supreme Court ruling against glyphosate or Big Ag discovering something better.

Bayer, reset your panic button back to DEFCON 5.