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Driving this herbicide off the market won’t make people safer
The Washington Post ^ | April 26, 2026 | Dan Blaustein-Rejto

Posted on 04/25/2026 10:12:54 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum

Dan Blaustein-Rejto is the director of food and agriculture at the Breakthrough Institute.

For decades, farmers have relied on glyphosate — the active ingredient in Roundup and the most widely used herbicide in the United States — to protect their crops. But despite evidence that the herbicide is safer than alternatives, a lawsuit cheered on by the Make America Healthy Again movement could curtail access to it. If successful, the effort would leave farmers and the environment worse off.

On Monday, the Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments in Monsanto Company v. Durnell.

John Durnell, a Missouri man who developed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, is arguing that glyphosate’s manufacturer, Monsanto, failed to warn users of the chemical’s danger. The company claims that it should not have to add a cancer warning to product labels because the Environmental Protection Agency does not classify the herbicide as a carcinogen.

The ruling will determine whether thousands of similar lawsuits can continue, even as Bayer, which acquired Monsanto in 2018, pursues a multibillion-dollar settlement. That settlement may look like an admission that glyphosate causes cancer, but it’s an effort to reduce the unpredictable costs of years of litigation, jury awards and reputational damage.

The case lands at a moment in which public opposition to glyphosate is at a fever pitch. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in February aimed at strengthening domestic production of glyphosate, and congressional Republicans have repeatedly proposed curbing states’ ability to impose pesticide warning requirements. Those moves have enraged MAHA supporters, who see them as a betrayal by an administration some of them helped elect. MAHA activists and other advocates plan to rally outside the Supreme...

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Government
KEYWORDS: food; glyphosate; maha; roundup
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1 posted on 04/25/2026 10:12:54 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Reminds me of when Dow’s Freon patent ran out and generic Freon was showing up in the market, then Freon was suddenly determined to be too dangerous and was outlawed and the only solution was Dow’s newly patented Freon replacement.


2 posted on 04/25/2026 10:20:01 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (If it ain't fun, you ain't doin' it right.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
Irony is that Freon is not poisonous or flammable. It could suffocate you like nitrogen, but look at
the videos of Grenfell Towers burning. All those people killed because the government forced
"eco" [sic] refrigerators on the residents to fight "climate change" [sic]. Burned to a crisp like
Hiroshima because unlike Freon, the "eco" refrigerant they used is highly flammable.

3 posted on 04/25/2026 10:58:14 PM PDT by Governor Dinwiddie ( O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is gracious, and his mercy endures forever. — Psalm 106)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

It is a shame that MAHA has embraced communism. The markets should be free to determine this sort of thing.


4 posted on 04/25/2026 11:00:49 PM PDT by ProgressingAmerica (The U.S. Constitution is not a suicide pact. Progressivism is a suicide pact.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

I was told the lighted end of a cigarette could generate enough heat around Freon to form phosgene gas very toxic. On submarines we used chillers to cool equipment and the boat. Obviously we had a closed atmosphere, so we monitored for leaks and didn’t smoke around our chiller units. Round up like any farm chemicals have ways to mitigate handling hazards. I’ve used Round Up for years. Read the MSDS sheets on everything you work with. Don’t breathe it, don’t get it on your skin, or in your eyes. Use your head for something beside a freaking hat rack. I have a 2 gallon jug of Round Up for my little 6 acre horse pasture. I’m 74 years old. Use your head people. Water will kill you if you screw around. IMO


5 posted on 04/26/2026 12:44:24 AM PDT by Equine1952 (MM1SS SASOB)
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To: Equine1952

some strawberry farmer moved a mile down the road from my daughter’s house in North Idaho. They were on ten acres, part of which they gardened. Strawberry farmer used roundup,so much that it was detected in their water supply.


6 posted on 04/26/2026 1:28:19 AM PDT by Veto! ((Trump is Superman))
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To: Veto!

Their drinking water or irrigation water? We have canals here in SE Idaho but I don’t drink out of them or bath in them. That crap is expensive, I use mine sparingly. Seems odd. Round Up kills straw berries.


7 posted on 04/26/2026 1:35:34 AM PDT by Equine1952 (MM1SS SASOB)
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To: Veto!
I used to be a skeptic on all this herbicide alarm. But recently I read Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring". My mother had a copy on her bookshelf when I was young. She also had Rachel Carson's "Sea Trilogy".

When I was a boy, there were almost no Bald Eagles in Virginia. I thought I would die without ever seeing one. Now Bald Eagles are common in Virginia. Magnificent national symbol. After a lot of thought, I finally must confess that Rachel Carson was right.

The sad thing about Rachel Carson is that she was a smoker, and died of breast cancer two years after her famous book was published. She was a country girl, and grew up on a farm. She was close to nature all her life. She learned about nature by living it on her family farm.

8 posted on 04/26/2026 1:46:02 AM PDT by Governor Dinwiddie ( O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is gracious, and his mercy endures forever. — Psalm 106)
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To: Veto!

The reason I ask canal or well is to get in a well takes awhile but the canal companies (at least around me keep the canal banks clean with burning and I’m sure they spray.” It would not surprise me to find traces of a herbicide in a canal water. My well is 230’ deep, a strawberry farm next door won’t affect me till 2033 unless he pours it down my well. Which will get him shot.


9 posted on 04/26/2026 1:49:20 AM PDT by Equine1952 (MM1SS SASOB)
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To: Equine1952

Actually, unless he put it in my well or the canal traveled to the aquifer directly I’d never see it because the chemical chain would break down. If it’s in their drinking water they need to do some (pardon the pun) digging.


10 posted on 04/26/2026 2:15:16 AM PDT by Equine1952 (MM1SS SASOB)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

“President Donald Trump signed an executive order in February aimed at strengthening domestic production of glyphosate”


That’s the only FACT that counts. Yet, even if the WashPoo took/was paid to take Trump side here, it has to invent a “MAHA outrage” to smear the President. What a bunch of scumbags!
Glyphosate is perfectly fine, the Japanese have no health problem even if they use it 2 or 3 times more than Americans.
Those who believe it’s bad are not MAHA, they are leftist drones who are either suckers or fearmongerers.


11 posted on 04/26/2026 3:32:50 AM PDT by miniTAX
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To: Governor Dinwiddie

“After a lot of thought, I finally must confess that Rachel Carson was right.”


“She was right” is not the same thing as “you think she was right”.
No matter how much you think about it, Rachel Carson was wrong. Your propaganda for her is disgusting.


12 posted on 04/26/2026 3:38:33 AM PDT by miniTAX
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To: ProgressingAmerica

Markets are too distance to notice individual dangers. It would be best for the farming industries not to look for an alternative substance but to change the current methods. I doubt that will happen.


13 posted on 04/26/2026 3:44:15 AM PDT by jimfr
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To: ProgressingAmerica

They literally spray this crap on wheat before harvest. You do not have a choice. There is, in comparison, a tiny organic market for glyphosate-free wheat.

There is no “free market”.


14 posted on 04/26/2026 3:46:37 AM PDT by NY.SS-Bar9 (Those that vote for a living outnumber those that work for one.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Freon was banned in the US not because it’s dangerous but because of the “ozone hole”, a global hysteria which proved so effective to scare the shit out of the populace that it was used as a template to spawn an even bigger scam, global warming/climate change/climate apocalypse.

Freon is still widely used in China, Japan, etc... A perfectly fine product gone to waste because of fearmongering.


15 posted on 04/26/2026 3:49:02 AM PDT by miniTAX
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

https://triplepundit.com/2026/glyphosate-lawsuits-roundup-maha-trump-administration/


16 posted on 04/26/2026 3:49:35 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

“Dan Blaustein-Rejto is the Director of Food & Agriculture at the Breakthrough Institute. His work examines how public policy can support environmentally and socially beneficial agricultural innovations such as methane-reducing cattle feeds and alternative proteins. Dan has led multi-stakeholder projects to identify technical options to decarbonize agriculture, assess federal policy gaps and opportunities, and build coalitions to advance climate-smart agriculture.”

https://thebreakthrough.org/people/dan-blaustein-rejto


17 posted on 04/26/2026 3:51:33 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Using glyphosate on grain immediately before harvest - to dry down - has got to increase human intake over using it before sowing. And glyphosate tolerant corn, as well. Which enters the food chain as animal feed as well.

We produced grain in abundance before these practices.

And maybe without an ethanol mandate we wouldn’t need quite as much.


18 posted on 04/26/2026 3:52:45 AM PDT by heartwood
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

https://rodaleinstitute.org/why-organic/organic-farming-practices/organic-no-till/


19 posted on 04/26/2026 3:58:39 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: heartwood
"Pre-harvest desiccation may account for only a small percentage of overall glyphosate use...but it accounts for over 50 percent of dietary exposure."

In 2015 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency increased threshold levels in both oats and wheat; in the case of oats, the allowable threshold for final processed grain was raised from 0.1 per million (ppm) to 30 ppm.

https://ensia.com/features/glyphosate-drying/#:~:text=Two%20years%20before%20the%20first,and%20dries%20in%20the%20field.

20 posted on 04/26/2026 4:05:51 AM PDT by heartwood
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