alt Hacker NewsAs is so often the case for controversies before the Supreme Court, this case isn't so much about glyphosate as it is about the interface between federal and state law.
Since 1991, the EPA has held that glyphosate is not carcinogenic; it was (at the time) categorized "Group E", which means that not only is there not evidence for it being carcinogenic, but that there is material evidence that it is not. Later, IARC (in a decision that was controversial among global public health agencies) listed glyphosate as a 2A probable carcinogen, alongside red meat, potatoes, deep fryer oil, and a slew of scary chemicals that includes many other insecticides and herbicides.
States like California enacted labeling-law regimes that key in part off IARC's classification, which meant that in those states Roundup products required labeling. Monsanto/Bayer lost civil cases based on failure to label.
That's the domain-specific stuff. What the court likely cares about is the preemption doctrine. In a variety of different situations, competing state and federal statutes are by explicit or implicit preemption rules. In many cases, federal preemption is a result of bargains with industry: for instance, we got programs like Energy Star after negotiations where industry (and the states dependent on those industries) made concessions to the federal government in exchange for exemptions from state regulation, which is why there's controversy over local municipal ordinances that attempt to ban gas ranges (apropos nothing, but: combustion products of gas ranges: also IARC carcinogens).
There's a weird backstory to public opposition to glyphosate which has very little to do with glyphosate itself (as someone else on this thread pointed out, glyphosate is relatively benign and relatively inert compared other common crop and landscape treatments), but rather with the idea that glyphosate is part of the technology stack of GM crops.
For those people it's worth knowing that the civil liability Monsanto/Bayer is trying to avoid here is approximately the same as the reason Jays Potato Chips bags sometimes have "Not For Sale In California" labeling. Nobody has declared that Roundup is categorically unsafe. Some states have declared that you have to label it the same way you would a gas station or Disneyland ride.
Replies
Important to note it's not Glyphosate on trial, it's Roundup. There is a huge gulf between studies and conclusions on Glyphosate, and studies and conclusions on Roundup. Glyphosate is the safest and most effective herbicide known to mankind. Roundup - which includes Glyphosate, in addition to other additives - may be unnecessarily dangerous.
Also worth noting that Monsanto could stop selling Roundup entirely, and it wouldn't really matter. Monsanto's Glyphosate patent expired, so you can get cheaper Glyphosate from many different manufacturers. Which is great, because it means we can avoid the potentially-more-dangerous Roundup, and use the simpler base chemical instead. Distancing the pesticide from the "evil corporation" might actually make people less afraid of it.
> As is so often the case for controversies before the Supreme Court, this case isn't so much about glyphosate as it is about the interface between federal and state law.
I know what you meant, and I suspect everyone reading it does too, but this is the type of sentence where the ambiguity amuses me. It's certainly true that most of the controversies before the Supreme Court aren't about glyphosate!
The best-reasoned criticism of glyphosate is that it disrupts the gut biome (this is a fact). I suspect that many "gluten allergies" are actually gut biome problems from glyphosate-desiccated wheat.
These aren't labeling cases. Durnell is the one the Supreme Court took, but it's one of tens of thousands. John Durnell sued Monsanto in Missouri state court after getting non-Hodgkin's lymphoma from twenty years of spraying Roundup as the "spray guy" for his neighborhood, and the jury gave him $1.25 million for his cancer, not a fine for a missing sticker. The legal theory is "failure to warn," but that's a tort claim about whether Monsanto adequately communicated the risk to users who then got hurt, not a regulatory question about what text has to appear on the bottle. Earlier California verdicts followed suit. Juries found Monsanto liable for the plaintiffs' cancer under regular product liability law. But, none of these are Prop 65 enforcement actions. [0]
The Jays chips comparison cuts the other way. CA's Prop 65 warning for glyphosate got blocked by a federal court in 2020, the Ninth Circuit upheld the block in 2023, and Prop 65 warnings for acrylamide in food were permanently shut down last May. So... California isn't actually making Roundup carry a Prop 65 warning, which is what your chips comparison assumes. The real question in Durnell is whether federal pesticide law stops a Missouri jury from finding Bayer liable for a specific person's cancer. Pretty different from whether you slap a warning sticker on a bag of chips (and Jay's doesn't carry a "Not for Sale" in CA -that's generally smaller companies who couldn't afford reformulation but the reality is they likely just didn't sell there). [1]
[0] https://legal-planet.org/2026/02/03/pesticides-cancer-and-fa... [1] https://www.greenbergglusker.com/publications/court-finds-re...
> the idea that glyphosate is part of the technology stack of GM crops
Is this true? Can't we we give in on glyphosphate without losing GMOs?
> There's a weird backstory to public opposition to glyphosate which has very little to do with glyphosate itself (as someone else on this thread pointed out, glyphosate is relatively benign and relatively inert compared other common crop and landscape treatments), but rather with the idea that glyphosate is part of the technology stack of GM crops.
I still don’t understand why people seem to care about genetically modified glyphosate tolerant soybeans and corn, they’re mostly fed to animals anyways.
Crossbreeding plants is genetic modification.
> a weird backstory to public opposition to glyphosate which has very little to do with glyphosate itself
Is it required that the public have a "good reason" for wanting something?
> glyphosate is relatively benign and relatively inert compared other common crop and landscape treatments
We used to spray DDT everywhere. This isn't exactly a resounding recommendation. Perhaps there's a case for using as little additives in farming as is possible.
It sounds like this would actually be good to decide now if the court were truly a "conservative" court - there is no legitimate reason for preemption to apply to labeling laws (even as broken as California's labeling law is), as labeling a product a certain way is not a mutually-exclusive action. But I expect the rank hypocrisy will win out, especially with the "culture war" backdrop of California delenda est.
> Since 1991, the EPA has held that glyphosate is not carcinogenic; it was (at the time) categorized "Group E", which means that not only is there not evidence for it being carcinogenic, but that there is material evidence that it is not. Later, IARC (in a decision that was controversial among global public health agencies) listed glyphosate as a 2A probable carcinogen, alongside red meat, potatoes, deep fryer oil, and a slew of scary chemicals that includes many other insecticides and herbicides.
Excuse me if I dont believe "this stuff isnt harmful".
And Arsenic was once safe.
Asbestos was the most amazing fireproof wonder material.
Thalidomide was a wonder drug with no side effects.
Tetraethyl lead was perfectly safe everywhere.
Fen-phen was a great diet drug.
Id also add "consumption of fluoride in water supply" (topical/toothpaste makes sense, consumption does not).
>As is so often the case for controversies before the Supreme Court, this case isn't so much about glyphosate as it is about the interface between federal and state law.
It was mentioned on a podcast recently that in many cases, the SC is not making a decision on what should/shouldn't happen/be the policy/is correct or whatever. They are deciding which layer of government gets to decide a given question. The Executive Branch? Legislation? Constitution? Who is the controlling entity?
Now, in a practical sense, by the time it gets to the SC, making a decision on who gets to decide, is, functionally, picking what the outcome is, since the various layers of government have already made their positions clear.
But the upshot is, if one is upset with what happens with a given policy after a SC decision, in many cases (although not all), the proper target of one's ire should not be the SC; since what they are usually saying is something like "this is something that is controlled by statute. If the statute is dumb/bad/poorly written, that is not our fault nor within our control, take it up with Congress to rewrite the statue", and instead one should be upset with whoever the controlling entity is for doing a bad job (in recent years: most commonly congress, not so much for doing a bad job so much as not doing any job)