Iowa senators approved a bill that would block failure-to-warn lawsuits against pesticide companies, aligning state law with federal EPA label requirements.
Cami Koons reports for Iowa Capital Dispatch.
In short:
- Senate File 394 passed 26–21 and would prevent Iowans from suing pesticide makers over warning labels, as long as those labels meet U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards.
- The bill’s supporters argue it protects farmers from rising costs and aligns with federal law, while opponents say it removes critical legal tools for people harmed by products like RoundUp.
- Critics cited evidence of corporate misconduct and noted that lawsuits allowed in other states would be barred in Iowa under this law.
Key quote:
“If they did everything right, why are there reams of discovery emails showing that they lied?”
— State Sen. Janice Weiner, D-Iowa City
Why this matters:
Pesticide exposure, and particularly the widespread use of glyphosate, sits at the volatile intersection of public health, agriculture, and corporate power. Glyphosate, best known as the main chemical in RoundUp, is used liberally on crops across the U.S., but especially in states like Iowa, where industrial-scale farming dominates the landscape. Although the International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans,” the EPA under both former and current administrations has stood by its safety.
This discrepancy has fueled public mistrust and a wave of lawsuits, some of which have revealed troubling efforts by agrochemical companies to sway scientific opinion and regulatory reviews. Meanwhile, cancer rates in Iowa have quietly climbed to among the highest in the country, leading to growing alarm about the long-term health impacts of sustained exposure — not only for workers but for rural families, schoolchildren, and entire ecosystems. As science races to understand the full effects of chronic chemical exposure, many communities feel caught between a regulatory system that struggles to keep pace and an agricultural economy that often leaves little room for alternatives.
Related EHN coverage: Agricultural pesticide exposure linked to childhood cancers, study says
