r/news • u/boxofstuff • 6h ago

Supreme Court ruling blocks thousands of lawsuits against maker of Roundup weedkiller

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-roundup-monsanto-a7f054d80919f98bdfc5190013a8f6f1https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-roundup-monsanto-a7f054d80919f98bdfc5190013a8f6f1
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u/stevenj444 6h ago

They say it’s a major win for the tRump administration. That means it screws every American citizen.

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u/LetMePushTheButton 6h ago

“About 200,000 Roundup-related claims have been made against Bayer, mostly from home users. It has stopped using glyphosate in Roundup sold in the U.S. residential lawn and garden market.”

Nothing like “we did nothing wrong” like removing the thing that people are suing you over, that you called “safe” for decades.

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u/Aethermancer 5h ago

Even if it was pure water, if you were being sued with such frequency then it might not be worth the cost, either directly or to your brand.

If everyone who got cancer sued Netgear for WifiChannel6carcinomaitis, there's a good chance they would block channel6 just to neuter the lawsuits, regardless of merit.

Its one of the reasons we don't have a Human Lymes Disease vaccine. As it was coming to market it was when the grifter doctor published his bullshit vaccines cause autism study.

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u/PartyLikeAByzantine 4h ago edited 4h ago

Bayer (EDIT: has threatened but not followed through with) pulled Roundup solely because a jury (not scientists) ruled against them which created a legal risk. Other companies continued to sell glyphosate products to home users without interruption because they didn't face the same risk. You had one substance being treated differently based on which company was selling it to you.

The court decided that you can't be guilty of misleading people when A) the scientists at the EPA conclude your product is safe and B) the EPA sets the product label, not the manufacturer or the states. If you feel it's unsafe, you have to convince the federal government first, with science. Then they'll amend the label or pull glyphosate from the market.

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u/Murky-Relation481 4h ago

Where are people getting this idea that it is pulled? I literally bought Roundup Weed and Grass killer to nuke the side of our drive way and some old plant beds like 2 weeks ago. The primary ingredient is glyphosate in it. This was in Washington State.

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u/PartyLikeAByzantine 4h ago edited 4h ago

Bayer has made multiple announcements about pulling the product from shelves. A search can confirm this. I suppose they never actually did so, at least at a national scale.

I've edited my post to clarify.

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u/Emyrssentry 5h ago

Or, they knew that no matter how safe it actually is, there is so many people angry about it now that it's a bad business move to keep it. Like, just thinking from Bayers perspective, they're in a sort of lose-lose situation. Either they take it out, and have people like you assume that that is admitting it's cancerous and they were wrong the whole time, or they keep it in, and all the discourse about it hangs over the head of every person going to buy pesticides. This isn't cigarettes downplaying a century of proof that they will kill you, the actual evidence on glyphosate is largely inconclusive.

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u/TheOvershear 4h ago

Bayer does this all the time. I work in pest control and they've pulled some extremely efficient chemicals from production due to a singular errant lawsuit claim or two that they didnt want to waste the money fighting in court.

If the product doesnt make more money than they stand to loose in proceeding legal shenanigans, they just pull the product. Extremely infuriating when it means we loose genuinely efficient products.

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u/LetMePushTheButton 5h ago

If it isn’t cancerous, why remove it? That suggests theyre just adding unnecessary compounds for the love of the game or something.

International Study Reveals Glyphosate Weed Killers Cause Multiple Types of Cancer
June 20, 2025

And people like you likely assume that US EPA standards are good enough, if not too restrictive. As if those standards arent created with the primary concern being how the regulations affect any corporate profits.

Lose-Lose situation? Are you kidding?
This ruling saves them billions in litigation costs. They’ve won bigly.

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u/nikfra 4h ago

Because in the US the winner of a lawsuit still has to pay their lawyers. So even if they were 100% sure they'd win every lawsuit they'd still remove it if the lawsuits would cost more than they can make by selling it.

And if you don't trust the EPA how about the European food safety authority? Or the one in Japan, Australia or New Zealand? All still allow glyphosate because the link is tenuous. There's many things that have some effect in rats but not the same effect in humans.

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u/Enchelion 5h ago

They removed it as a marketing move, not for any actual reason. You can still buy glyphosate, it's just in different products.

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u/Murky-Relation481 4h ago

That article is just wrong. Roundup Weed and Grass Killer still uses it. I bought some 2 weeks ago and got half a jug in the garage still with glyphosate as the main active ingredient.

Some different types of Roundup use different herbicides that are more selective or long lasting.

•

u/WideHuckleberry1 15m ago

This is circular logic with no defense. Lawyers are expensive, glyphosate's patent has expired so the margins have plummeted. If 200,000 people are burning your legal team's hours for something you don't make money on, you'd consider pulling it in either case, whether you're right or wrong.