Kennedy Is in the Room. But Whose Science Is on the Table?

For years, the only way to fight against the weedkiller Roundup has been in a courtroom. Individuals who asserted that their lives had been forever altered by cancer from the weedkiller sued its maker, Bayer, which purchased the chemical’s original manufacturer, Monsanto, by the tens of thousands. At times, juries agreed with the plaintiffs and awarded them substantial sums. But now, thanks to a June 25, 2026 Supreme Court ruling, that particular door is mostly shut. The court ruled 7 to 2 in Monsanto v. Durnell that a state cannot force a cancer warning onto a Roundup label that the government, in this case the EPA, has already approved. The decision put an end to what lawyers call a “failure to warn” claim, which is the argument that Bayer should have warned Americans that its product could cause cancer. This argument was the theory behind most of the big verdicts in favor of the plaintiffs. No, the court decision did not rule that glyphosate—the active chemical in Roundup—is safe, and it did not end all litigation. Damning for most lawsuits, it said something much narrower: the Environmental Protection Agency is the only agency that gets to decide what the label says.

It is important to understand how the door to the courthouse was shut, because the current government did not sit idly by with no stake in the outcome. As reported by The Highwire, in December 2025, the Trump administration filed a brief at the Supreme Court backing Bayer. To the disbelief of many a weary supporter, that brief was signed by attorneys with clear ties to Bayer. And it did not stop there. A public records release later showed that EPA officials, several of them pulled from the agrochemical industry, had met privately in mid-2025 with Bayer executives to discuss the company’s glyphosate litigation, its labeling, and its strategy as it related to the Supreme Court.

And the records go even further. According to meeting notes, Bayer offered a “small thanks” to the agency for updating its glyphosate webpage, which, by then, was graced with an EPA letter reaffirming glyphosate’s safety and stating that the agency would not approve a label with a cancer warning. In other words, the referee had already informed one team how the call was going to go. Insider information, so to speak. Around the same time, the Trump administration issued an Executive Order invoking the Defense Production Act, to ramp up domestic production, mostly of elemental phosphorus and glyphosate, treating them both as supply-chain vulnerabilities. The order even carried an immunity clause, which sent critics into a panic. But, as we previously reported, it is a narrow shield for complying with a federal production order, not protection from cancer lawsuits. Declaring glyphosate important to farming, the order stated nothing about whether glyphosate is harmful to breathe or eat. It focused on boosting domestic production and cutting reliance on imports. And it conveniently benefited Bayer, the only US producer of glyphosate, which has even sought tariffs on the Chinese version.

So, if the main path to winning in court against glyphosate is closed and the president’s production order was never about safety, the decision that needs to be made once and for all about this toxic chemical falls to just one place: the EPA. And the big question is will the agency, in its regular review of glyphosate—which is underway right now—decide that it is safe or dangerous? In announcing the current review, that agency also highlighted something new. On September 22, it shared that Robert F. Kennedy’s Department of Health and Human Services would join in the effort to evaluate this chemical. The two agencies signed an agreement to share research and fill in gaps, pulling in scientists from the government’s cancer, toxicology, and occupational-health institutes. But hold on a second. It is important to notice that everyone poised to shape the decision comes from a federal agency, with no independent outsiders named to the group. The public can submit studies for consideration during the comment period, but, again, the experts deciding which studies will weigh in on its decision all work for the same government whose last review of glyphosate hinged on Bayer’s own research.

As this critical review moves forward, Kennedy is certainly an interesting man to drop into this procedure. He has broken with his own administration over glyphosate more than once, stating that he was not happy about the executive order, that he disliked the government backing Bayer at the Supreme Court, and that pesticides are “poisons” designed to kill living things. He has argued that the nation’s dependence on glyphosate wrecks the soil, increases costs for farmers, and leaves behind toxic residues that keep US crops out of foreign markets. Kennedy’s hands-on involvement now means that the review includes a man who, at least in public, has repeatedly stated that he does not trust glyphosate. If nothing else, that is a reason for cautious hope.

On paper, the review itself is something that many weary Americans have been waiting for. For the first time, the review will examine the full Roundup formula—the product that people actually spray on the ground and eat inside and on their food—not just pure glyphosate in a lab. This time, the surfactants that help glyphosate stay on and penetrate into leaves will be examined. This is significant because peer-reviewed work has found that those formulations can be more biologically disruptive than glyphosate alone. Europe has already banned one of the co-formulants used in older versions of the toxin. The review will also look at farm workers, at residue in food, at what happens when crops are sprayed days before harvest, and at whether the toxin causes cancer and harms reproduction. In other words, is it an endocrine disruptor? A growing body of studies already point this way. The public has a chance to weigh in on which studies the agency should consider until November 23, 2026, and the EPA expects to finish its assessment in early 2027.

This is all hopeful, but there is good reason to keep expectations low as we watch the process unfold. The review is an agreement to study the product, not an order to restrict it. In its own words, the EPA stated that the deal “does not predetermine or direct the outcome” of the review, and that the agency “retains sole authority” over what happens on the product label. And then there is the fact that everyone on the committee works for the government and will decide which research it will read. The worry around this aspect is real, and has happened before. When the EPA declared that glyphosate was “not likely” to cause cancer, it built that entire conclusion on a stack of review papers that it admitted was a problem in a footnote in its own 2016 report. As The Highwire documented, the EPA acknowledged that nearly every review in the stack of papers that determined its decision was “funded and/or linked to Monsanto Co. or other registrants.” The agency disregarded the single independent review in the stack that found a link between glyphosate and cancer.

Right now, the thing to watch closely is not just the goings on between Kennedy and the EPA. And it is not the press releases about rigor and transparency. It is the footnotes. When the assessment is made public in 2027, the only question that really matters is whose studies the assessment rests on. If the answer is independent scientists with no stake in the sale of the product, then this review will be quite different from the last one. And it just might make a difference to those quite weary of the lack of real action against the poisons that are harming Americans across the country. Let’s pray for that outcome.