Early in the fall of 2025 I asked Mr. Kennedy for a call to discuss the glyphosate liability shield, which had moved to Congress. Bayer’s CEO, Wes Anderson, had asked the Board for more billions to be set aside to deal with the glyphosate liability problem (on top of about $10 billion already committed for legal costs, payouts, settlements and PR). His career hinged on getting rid of the glyphosate liability, and he was laser-focused on doing so. Eventually he got a promise of $17 billion to handle the problem from his Board. This was covered earlier in this substack.

Had the Republican Congress voted to give pesticides in general a liability shield roughly equivalent to the shield given to childhood vaccines in 1986, it would go against everything MAHA stood for. I also think it would be unconstitutional, as Congress would be (again) voting away the right for citizens to sue for damages if they are harmed. Which the Constitution grants us.

However, I do have to admit that in fact what the bill did that focused on labeling was to only delay labeling reviews and changes for 5 years, and stop judges from using any data that conflicted with the EPA-approved label. The EPA labeling review had already been multiply delayed (for about 17 years) in 2025 and a review was required in 2026.

The original data that led to glyphosate’s approval and label had been proven to have been ghostwritten by Monsanto employees, as a result of the discovery in the Johnson v Monsanto case. Somehow the legal system had subsequently failed to effectively grapple with that as the delays in reviewing glyphosate safety data kept piling up.

Let me be clearer. The bill in Congress did not absolutely ban lawsuits against glyphosate. Instead, it banned the one cause of legal action: failure to warn of known injuries on the label, which was the only cause of action by which lawsuits against Bayer had been won. It just tossed out the one effective legal theory… for all pesticide products.

I’ve not told this story in public before, though I have told it to several people privately. As Bayer’s glyphosate bulldozer was getting into high gear, in early fall 2025 I contacted Sec. Kennedy and told him I needed to talk to him about glyphosate. I asked him what was going on with the Congressional bill, pointing out what a disaster the bill was for those of us interested in food safety, which he knew, since he helped litigate the first winning case against glyphoste. The House had just passed it; the Senate needed to stop it. Our organization had done a great deal to expose the obfuscatory language in the House Appropriations bill, and I think a lot of Senators and members realized they did not want their fingerprints on the bill.

Kennedy told me on that phone call that President Trump was against the pesticide liability shield and had even sent two of his top lieutenants to lobby members of Congress against the liability shield. I was relieved. I think we spoke in September or October 2025 but I did not note the date.

However, by December 1, Trump had apparently flipped. The DOJ’s Solicitor General filed a brief that had been requested by the court about 7 months earlier, to provide the court with the administration’s position on the Bayer case the Court had been asked to review. (The Supreme Court only accepts 1-2% of cases that apply to be heard.) This Solicitor General’s brief asked the Court to take the case and rule in Bayer’s favor—exactly the opposite of what Bobby had told me 1-3 months earlier.

About two months later the Solicitor General sent yet another brief to the Supreme Court supporting Bayer’s case, again. And fueled by the administration briefs, the Supreme Court took the case.

Initially, all the amicus briefs were from industry and favored Bayer, but finally our side realized the enormity of the issue and started writing its own amicus briefs to the Court. But in the end it did not matter, and the Court in 2026 issued a ruling for Bayer.

BTW, this decision saved the Senators from having to vote for or against Bayer.

I think Bayer had probably been negotiating with the Susie Wiles team over time, and finally offered an attractive enough benefit that Susie got the Trump administration to flip and tell the DOJ to write a brief or two favoring Bayer. Or, Bobby had been told a lie. Or Bobby lied to me—but since I have never caught him in a lie to me, I doubt that. Bobby does flatter, though. And he can exaggerate. His tweets are not always accurate. But I know he doesn’t write them all, because I used to write some of them, so I am certain he does not write most of them.

Bottom line, I think he is as straight-up a person as he can be, given his situation. I know it does not look that way to a lot of people.

• But who else could put up with what he has put up with?

• Who else could do a better job than Bobby?

• Who else has the strength to ignore the constant attacks from every quarter—including his own?

Finally, given what I know, the Calley Means admissions definitely ring true to me, thought I have no doubt that Calley’s memory is selective. And sure, there will be a book. So what? I can’t wait to see even more admissions in black and white.

 

IPAK-EDU is grateful to Meryl’s CHAOS letter (Critical Health Analysis and OpinionS) as this piece was originally published there and is included in this news feed with mutual agreement. Read More