After Durnell: Why the Fight Against Pesticides and their Health Harms Is Entering a New Chapter

An analysis from Center for Food Safety

WASHINGTON, July 2, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- More than 200,000 Americans have sued Monsanto, arguing that their Roundup pesticide gave them cancer.

They are farmers, groundskeepers, landscapers, and regular folks tending to their own yards. People that worked in fields growing genetically engineered, glyphosate-resistant crops, where Roundup (with its active ingredient, glyphosate) was sprayed in increasing amounts right on top of those crops. People who spent years spraying what they believed was a "safe" weedkiller, before being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

For more than a decade, juries across the country have listened to their stories. Again and again, they concluded that Monsanto (now Bayer) failed to warn the public about the cancer risks associated with its blockbuster herbicide, Roundup. Those verdicts forced the company to pay roughly $10 billion to settle nearly 100,000 claims rather than risk resolving each claim individually, while over sixty thousand more cases remain pending. Monsanto even pulled glyphosate from the Roundup residential formula sold in stores like Home Depot across the country, in what looked to be a transparent attempt to limit further liability for its product, which has been found in several lawsuits to be a probable cause of cancer in home users.

Then came Monsanto v. Durnell.

John Durnell is a Missouri farmer who used Roundup for decades and is one of the many Americans who developed non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Like hundreds of thousands of others, he claimed Monsanto should have warned him about the potential cancer risks associated with glyphosate use. His case advanced all the up to the U.S. Supreme Court, who just ruled in Monsanto's favor last week. When the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in Monsanto v. Durnell, it delivered a significant victory to Monsanto and the larger pesticide industry. By holding that certain state law "failure-to-warn" claims are preempted (or prohibited) by federal pesticide law, the Court closed the courthouse doors on an important means for people harmed by toxic pesticides to hold manufacturers accountable. For thousands of cancer victims and their families, the decision represents a painful setback. It is yet another tragic example of this Supreme Court elevating corporate rights over human rights.

But this is far from the end of the story. When regulators fail to protect the public, corporations benefit while communities bear the cost. However, the Durnell decision underscores that the legal and scientific work of watchdog nonprofits is more important than ever. When regulators fail in their duties to protect the public interest, nonprofits must step into the breach and fulfil that role. And the Durnell decision just made that public-interest-in-exile role more important than ever.

A Decision Built on a Captured Regulatory System

The Supreme Court's decision cited the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) cancer classification that glyphosate is "not likely to be carcinogenic to humans," but the Court also correctly recognized that the EPA determination was found unlawful in a 2022 Center for Food Safety (CFS) case. That federal court decision struck down EPA's human health determination, concluding that EPA violated its own scientific standards in concluding glyphosate posed no cancer risk.

Before the now-struck down 2020 cancer determination, the last time EPA actually made any other determination of glyphosate's cancer risk was over three decades ago, in 1993. That stale decision is now notorious for itself being extremely scientifically questionable, with EPA reversing its initial determination under Monsanto pressure.

But even if it wasn't itself dubious and uber-outdated, the 1993 determination was made long before the explosion in glyphosate's use, and the resulting increase in human exposures due to Monsanto's genetically engineered glyphosate-resistant crops. It was made before the scores of scientific reports and analyses creating a body of science which overwhelmingly shows the increased risk of cancer after glyphosate exposure. And before the 2025 scientific journal retraction of the study or multiple ethical violations that was the former pillar of Monsanto's cancer safety defense, cited by EPA and other regulators more than 99% of any other studies.

EPA's treatment of glyphosate is far from singular; in reality, it exposes a deeper crisis at the heart of American pesticide regulation. For decades, EPA has repeatedly approved dangerous pesticides while failing to require meaningful warnings about their risks. New 2026 research released by Center for Food Safety and our allies at the Center for Biological Diversity demonstrates just how systemic that failure has become. Over the last forty years, EPA has identified approximately 200 pesticide active ingredients that are "likely" or "possible" human carcinogens. Yet virtually none of the thousands of pesticide products containing those chemicals carry cancer warning labels. Instead, the agency has routinely allowed pesticides to remain on the market despite acknowledging cancer risks far exceeding EPA's own benchmark of one additional cancer case per one million exposed people. The result? The public has been left in the dark, while pesticide manufacturers have continued selling products worth billions of dollars.

Why Lawsuits Matter

The litigation against Monsanto transformed the public conversation about Roundup. Internal company documents revealed through the litigation showed extensive Monsanto efforts to unduly influence scientific research and pesticide regulators, and avoid warning consumers about potential cancer risks. Juries repeatedly concluded that Monsanto failed to adequately warn users that Roundup exposure could contribute to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Those verdicts led Bayer, which acquired Monsanto in 2018, to pay roughly $10 billion to settle approximately 100,000 claims, while tens of thousands more remain pending. Another Bayer-proposed $7.25 billion settlement is currently making its way through the courts (although this proposal would fail to cover most class members' expenses and has been accused in court of violating the Constitution and involving questionable ethics).

The Durnell decision will make these cases harder to bring and win, eliminating one of the main causes of action. That said, the cancer cases will continue under other legal theories not at issue in Durnell, which is why Monsanto has been seeking broader immunity covering all such cases in Congress.

Still, the Durnell decision underscores why strong federal oversight is now more essential than ever. If injured people are locked out of state courts to remedy corporate misconduct, then EPA must fulfill its legal obligations to evaluate pesticides rigorously, require accurate warning labels, and remove dangerous products from the market while working to mitigate their harms when the science demands it. The decision similarly elevates the role of Congress: to place the public's rights over corporations' profit margins. And it reaffirms the role we all must play, by continuing to speak truth to power and demand our representatives protect the public interest, not corporations. To their credit, some members of Congress are already moving to introduce legislative amendments and new bills to override this victory for chemical corporations. However, history suggests this shift will not happen without persistent public pressure and legal accountability. That's where stakeholders like the Center for Food Safety, with expertise in litigation, science, and legislative advocacy, play a vital role.

Why Watchdogging and Advocacy Matter More Than Ever

For decades, Center for Food Safety has served as one of the country's leading watchdogs over EPA's pesticide program. Long before the Supreme Court considered Durnell, CFS was challenging EPA's unlawful approvals of glyphosate as well as numerous other pesticides. The organization has repeatedly taken EPA to court and held their feet to the fire over agency failures to consider cancer and other health risks; unaddressed harms to endangered species, pollinators, farmers, and farmworkers; groundwater contamination; and myriad violations of numerous federal environmental laws. Its legal victories have led to court decisions holding unlawful EPA approvals of pesticides such as glyphosate, dicamba, atrazine, neonicotinoid insecticides, malathion, and dozens of others.

Just as importantly, Center for Food Safety has helped expose a larger systemic problem. The agency charged with protecting public health and interest has too often instead become a rubberstamp for the pesticide industry's demands. Whether the issue is carcinogens, endocrine disruption, biodiversity loss, pollinator decline, endangered species, or contamination of drinking water, EPA has consistently underestimated risks while allowing dangerous products to remain on the market.

Glyphosate continues to be sprayed on nearly 300 million acres of American farmland every year. Millions more pounds are used in neighborhoods, parks, forests, schools, and along roadsides. The chemical remains detectable in food, water, soil, and the bodies of millions of Americans. The Supreme Court's decision does nothing to change those underlying scientific realities.

Today's ruling does not end Center for Food Safety's work. Rather, it makes it even more urgent. We will continue to pursue legal action and advocacy across a broad portfolio of pesticide and food safety issues, including:

• Ongoing litigation over glyphosate and EPA's still-pending registration review of the herbicide, which remains under court order following CFS's 2022 legal victory
• Protection of farmworkers and farmers from pesticides' health risks such as cancer and endocrine disruption
• Protection of organic and conventional farmers from pesticide drift harm to their crops, vineyards, and native ecosystems
• Legal action to protect pollinators from pesticides that devastate bee populations and threatening the collapse of critical ecosystems
• Defense of the Endangered Species Act, including ongoing litigation to secure federal protections for the monarch butterfly, the Iowa skipper, and other species pushed toward extinction by pesticide use and industrial agriculture
• Challenges to agency rollbacks to enforce federal environmental and food safety laws when the executive branch fails to do so

The legacy of Durnell has yet to be written. While the Court limited one avenue for justice, it also made clear how essential independent watchdogs have become. For the more than 200,000 people who have already claimed harm from Roundup, and for the millions still exposed to glyphosate every year, Center for Food Safety will continue fighting until the law, the science, and public health are finally brought back into alignment.

SOURCE The Center For Food Safety