With the victory of global pesticide manufacturer Bayer, Georgia became the second state to protect pesticide manufacturers from several lawsuits that claimed it did not warn customers of potential dangers.
The law signed Friday by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is designed to protect Bayer from lawsuits that claimed that the popular weed killer Roundup could not tell customers that it could cause cancer. It is written enough to provide Georgia legal protection to pesticide manufacturers who follow federal labeling requirements.
The North Dakota governor signed such first law last month, but similar measures have been considered this year in at least nine states.
Germany-based Bayer has acquired the summaries with a 2018 purchase from St. Louis-based Monsanto. However, it was soon struck by the onslaught of lawsuits claiming that glyphosate, a key ingredient in Roundup, caused non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Of the total 181,000 claims, including Roundup, more than 67,000 remain unpaid, but a Bayer spokesperson said Monday there was no details on the number of people in Georgia.
Although some studies have linked glyphosate to cancer, the US Environmental Protection Agency says it is not carcinogenic to humans when used according to instructions.
Bayer argues that glyphosate is safe. However, it stopped using ingredients in the residential version of Roundup and settled $16 billion to resolve the case. They continue to use glyphosate in the agricultural version of Roundup, but warn that they may need to stop doing so if legal costs continue to increase.
The new Georgia law is to take effect on January 1st. This means that it won’t affect existing cases, including a March decision by a Georgia ju-decision judge, including a roundup charge of nearly $2.1 billion in damages to a man who claimed that Roundup caused cancer.
Kemp has decided to sign the law after hearings from farmers and others in the farming community, spokesman Garrison Douglas said Monday.
Bayer is working with a coalition of agricultural and industrial groups to run a multiprong campaign. In addition to pursuing state and congressional laws, it also calls for the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, running advertisements on billboards, newspapers, television, radio stations and internet sites, promoting the importance of glyphosate in agriculture.
Glyphosate has been using efficient methods for controlling less cultivated weeds for decades, which helps prevent soil erosion. For some crops such as corn, soybeans, and cotton, Roundup is designed to work with genetically modified seeds that resist the fatal effects of glyphosate.
Without glyphosate, weeds can become difficult to control, reducing crop yields and making food more expensive, Bayer said.
“We’re looking forward to seeing the best of our efforts to help you,” said Brian Neighbor, president of crop science at Bayer in North America, Australia and New Zealand.
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Associated Press Writer Jeff Amy contributed to this report.
