KDSN RADIO News
Protest against Iowa bill that would limit lawsuits against farm chemical companies
About a dozen people rallied outside the Iowa Capitol Tuesday, criticizing a bill shielding some farm chemical makers from lawsuits alleging product labels failed to warn of cancer risks. The bill narrowly won approval in the Iowa Senate last week and is eligible for consideration in the House.
Ava Auen-Ryan of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement Action said the legislature’s time would be better spent finding ways to lower Iowa’s rising cancer rate, “not working on bills that provide immunity to giant corporations.”
Jenny Turner’s husband died in 2018 of a type of lymphoma she said has been linked to Roundup. “He wasn’t a farmer. He was a school band director, but he used Roundup in our yard and he had summer landscaping jobs and he lived in Iowa where we have high concentrations of pesticides and nitrates in our air and water.”
Turner, who is from West Des Moines, said the bill is being pushed by lobbyists to benefit Bayer, which makes Roundup, not farmers. “Now I know that glyphosate is useful for some farming, but everything has its pros and cons, and Roundup has a cost. Bayer would like to pretend that there is no cost,” Turner said. “Our state legislature must not help them silence people’s right to redress that cost in court.”
Bayer has accused “the litigation industry” of unfairly targeting glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup. The company says glyphosate minimizes the need for plowing and increases the productivity of crop land.
