Scrap the ‘Cancer Gag Act’

On Feb. 3, Republican state Sens. Mike Bousselot and Tom Shipley successfully advanced a bill limiting the “civil liability associated with the use of pesticides.” The bill was introduced last year but didn’t pass. Now, Republicans who control the Statehouse are proposing it again. And this time around Bayer has had time to invest millions of dollars in advertising and lobbying to get SSB 1051 passed.

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects the right to file a lawsuit, or petition the government for redress of grievances. However, the right to sue is subject to some restrictions. The "case or controversy" clause of Article III of the Constitution requires plaintiffs to demonstrate they have suffered an injury the court can redress.

We know lawsuits filed by cancer victims against Bayer are not nuisance or frivolous cases because more than 100,000 lawsuits against glyphosate manufacturers Monsanto and Bayer have been settled, and multiple other cancer victims have successfully won trial verdicts. It is alarming that Iowa has the second highest rate of cancer in the United States and the trend is upward. It should also be alarming to know that our Republican state government is doing close to nothing to address the trend and is often passing laws and rules that will make the potential causes of cancer harder to address.

The latest advertisement posted by Bayer on Facebook says and I quote, “Farming’s hard. It’s a little easier with glyphosate.“ The bill in question doesn’t prohibit the use of glyphosate, the main active compound in Roundup, but it does make it more difficult for people to use their constitutional right to file a lawsuit.

Bayer is right, farming’s hard, but dealing with cancer is even harder. Do we really want our government to deny cancer victims their constitutional right for redress? Do we really want to allow a giant foreign-owned company, like Bayer, to be exempt from responsibility for the products they sell because the product makes “farming a little easier?” Please call your state legislators and tell them you do not want Iowans’ rights to be limited by the Cancer Gag Act and demand they vote against further consideration of SSB 1051.

Also remind them of the Iowa motto, “Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain.”

Kim Hagemann lives in rural Polk County, is retired after working in intellectual property management for an international agricultural company and is a board member of Iowa CCI Action.