By Leah Douglas
WASHINGTON, April 27 (Reuters) - "Make America Healthy Again" activists rallied at the U.S. Supreme Court building on Monday against Bayer as the justices heard arguments in the German company's effort to end thousands of lawsuits that allege its weedkiller Roundup causes cancer.
A couple of hundred MAHA supporters cheered and chanted on the sidewalk outside the neoclassical white marble edifice during a rally called "The People vs. Poison," waving signs with slogans such as "No Immunity
for Poison" and "How Much Cancer is Acceptable?"
The name MAHA is a modification of President Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan. But speakers at the rally criticized the Trump administration's support for Bayer in this case as well as the use of pesticides in agriculture.
"You cannot make America healthy again and protect the corporations that are poisoning us," Vani Hari, a MAHA activist and author who spoke at the rally, told Reuters.
Kelly Ryerson, co-executive director of the advocacy group American Regeneration and another of the speakers, told Reuters the Trump administration needs to change its approach to pesticides to secure MAHA votes in the November congressional elections.
Trump's fellow Republicans hope to maintain their slim majorities in the House of Representatives and Senate in the midterms.
"MAHA came to vote, many people came to vote for MAHA, because of pesticides, because of the promise that was made that we were going to address the effect of pesticides on the human body," Ryerson said.
The MAHA movement backs Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a Trump appointee, and has aligned with some environmental groups and lawmakers.
Among the speakers at the rally were various MAHA leaders, members of environmental groups like Friends of the Earth and the Center for Biological Diversity, and lawmakers including Democratic Representative Chellie Pingree of Maine and Democratic Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey.
Bayer has appealed a jury verdict in Missouri state court awarding $1.25 million to a man named John Durnell who said he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma after years of exposure to glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup.
The company is facing tens of thousands of similar lawsuits in both federal and state courts across the country. Glyphosate is among the most commonly used weedkillers.
'FARMERS HAVE OTHER OPTIONS'
The Supreme Court appeared divided in the case, with a ruling expected by the end of June.
Paul Clement, the lawyer representing Bayer, argued that a ruling against the company "would open the door for crippling liability and undermine the interests of farmers who depend on federally registered pesticides for their livelihood."
While the biggest U.S. farmer lobby group filed a brief supporting Bayer in the case, some small farmer organizations have said agriculture does not need to be dependent on glyphosate.
"Bayer has come out, they've made major threats to take away glyphosate, and say that our food system will collapse without them. That's not true. Farmers have other options," Angela Huffman, co-founder, president and CEO of Farm Action, told Reuters at the rally.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted this month indicated that most Americans are concerned about pesticide use in food crops and oppose protecting companies from lawsuits when they sell cancer-causing products, even if the company warns about the risk.
(Reporting by Leah Douglas in Washington; Editing by Will Dunham)
