Kauaʻi Doctor Takes Aim at Health Risks from Roundup Chemical
US Supreme Court to consider Bayer petition to constrain states’ ability to require pesticide warnings
Earlier this year, Hawaii Business Magazine featured a Kauaʻi pediatrician, Lee Evslin, who cast a spotlight on proposed federal legislation that could have threatened the ability of scientists to study harmful effects of chemicals used on crops in Hawaiʻi and across the nation.
While that legislation stalled due to the government shutdown and other priorities in Washington, D.C., the threat is still present, perhaps more urgent.
Thatʻs because Bayer, which owns Roundup-producer Monsanto, has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to prevent states from imposing their own warnings when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has determined that warnings are not required. (20251201170732560_24-1068 — Monsanto v. Durnell.pdf)
The court is weighing whether to take up the request.
In 2018, Evslin helped focus state lawmakers’ attention on the health risks of chlorpyrifos used in fields near schools in the state, and a statewide ban was passed into law. A Supreme Court ruling in favor of Bayer in the current case would preclude such actions.
Evslin’s recent writing (The Generational Echo: How Glyphosate May Be Rewiring Our Children Before They Are Born; The Hidden Antibiotic in Our Food: How Glyphosate Disrupts the Microbiome and Threatens Our Health) draws attention to new scientific studies that examine how the chemicals sprayed on our food can cause long-lasting damage to the stomach microbiome, which regulates metabolism, brain health, immunity and kidney function, among others.
It’s chilling reading:
“In my last post, I argued that we need to stop viewing glyphosate merely as a weed killer and start seeing it as a broad-spectrum antibiotic we unknowingly ingest every day. We often think of toxicity in immediate terms: you eat a poison, you get sick,” Evslin says.
“But a growing body of research suggests that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, doesn’t work like a sudden poison. Instead, it acts like a time bomb.”
Evslin says recent studies counter the conclusions of those that the EPA relied on to determine that warning labels were not necessary. New research, he says, shows that “adverse effects were observed at doses 175 times lower than what the U.S. EPA currently considers safe.”
It also found that prenatal exposure to glyphosate can cause health issues in children and their children.
This month, the journal Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology retracted its publication of an April 2000 article purporting to show glyphosate is not carcinogenic.
“This article has been widely regarded as a hallmark paper in the discourse surrounding the carcinogenicity of glyphosate and Roundup,” the retraction notice states. “However, the lack of clarity regarding which parts of the article were authored by Monsanto employees creates uncertainty about the integrity of the conclusions drawn.
“Specifically, the article asserts the absence of carcinogenicity associated with glyphosate or its technical formulation, Roundup. It is unclear how much of the conclusions of the authors were influenced by external contributions of Monsanto without proper acknowledgments.”
If the EPA is blind to the new studies, states such as Hawaiʻi could step in – unless, that is, the Supreme Court intervenes at Bayer’s request to cut off that avenue, too.
In our story and others, Bayer has said that scientific studies show that its product is safe if used according to instructions. The EPA has accepted that argument.
Scientific research doesn’t stop even though regulatory review, for the moment at least, has.
