PediatricDigest: Latest from Food Politics: How to explain glyphosate hypocrisy? Bayer's lobbying and revolving door

By Marion Nestle

March 04 2026

How to explain glyphosate hypocrisy? Bayer’s lobbying and revolving door

Here’s one place where the MAHA and Food Justice movements agree: on glyphosate. Here is a post from thefoodbabe (@Vani Hari):

LOBBYING

This refers to U.S. Right to Know’s Bayer lobby tracker.

Federal disclosures show Bayer reported spending $9.19 million on lobbying Congress and the executive branch in 2025, which includes fees paid to at least 13 outside lobbying firms. As of the fourth quarter of 2025, 45 lobbyists were registered to lobby for Bayer under the Lobbying Disclosure Act.

The tracker comes from Stacy Malkan’s reporting: Tracing Bayer’s ties to power in Trump’s Washington; From lobby firms to top officials, a look at how Bayer built access and secured favors

The White House invokes the Defense Production Act to guarantee supplies of elemental phosphorus and glyphosate-based herbicides. Regulators reapprove dicamba, a Bayer herbicide twice blocked by federal courts, and clear the way for new pesticides containing toxic, persistent PFAS “forever” chemicals.

And the U.S. Justice Department urges the U.S. Supreme Court to erase billions of dollars of Bayer’s liability for its glyphosate-based Roundup weed killer – placing the weight of the executive branch on the side of a foreign company against thousands of Americans who say Bayer’s products caused their cancers.

Over the past year, the administration under President Donald J. Trump has delivered a string of victories to Bayer, the German agrichemical and pharmaceutical giant that merged with Monsanto in 2018 to become the world’s leading manufacturer of genetically modified seeds and pesticides.

REVOLVING DOOR

The term refers to government regulators taking jobs with corporations and vice versa. US Right to Know reports:

The Trump administration yesterday handed Bayer another win, urging the Supreme Court in a new brief to side with the German pesticide company in a high-stakes legal case that could wipe out thousands of cancer lawsuits and potentially billions of dollars in liability tied to glyphosate-based Roundup weed killer.

Three out of nine U.S. officials who signed the brief previously worked for law firms that have represented Bayer, raising questions about whether the Trump administration is providing special favors and benefits to Bayer and siding with a foreign corporation against Americans with cancer.

COMMENT

It’s pretty amazing what Bayer gets away with. Despite Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s insistence that glyphosate is carcinogenic and needs to get out of the food supply, he has now backtracked on that. In his backtracking statement, he says:

Unfortunately, our agricultural system depends heavily on these chemicals. The U.S. represents 4% of the world’s population, yet we use roughly 25% of its pesticides. If these inputs disappeared overnight, crop yields would fall, food prices would surge, and America would experience a massive loss of farms even beyond what we are witnessing today. The consequences would be disastrous.

This sounds like he’s looking out for farmers. But glyphosate is used in industrial agriculture, not small- and medium-sized family farms, and certainly not in organic and regenerative farms. As an herbicide, it’s used on feed for animals and fuel for automobiles. It’s also used for drying wheat and oats. It should not be used for food for people at all.

Why is this still allowed? The Bayer Lobby Tracker makes that clear.

The post How to explain glyphosate hypocrisy? Bayer’s lobbying and revolving door appeared first on Food Politics by Marion Nestle

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