The German big pharma and agrochemical company Bayer bought agrochemical maker Monsanto in 2018, which produced the Roundup herbicides with glyphosate, that is the subject of widespread US litigation because they allegedly cause cancer.
On 18 February 2026, President Trump signed an executive order protecting domestic production of phosphorus and glyphosate-based herbicides, for use in agriculture and the military (isn't it odd that chemicals to produce herbicides are in an executive order for chemical weapons?!?).
Bayer is facing tens of thousands of lawsuits over glyphosate herbicides causing cancer and that it failed to warn users of the risks. On 17 February 2026, Bayer announced a $7.25 billion settlement with cancer patients over glyphosate.
Trump's secretary of Health, Robert F Kennedy Jr, has always criticised glyphosate for its health harms, but is now supporting Trump's bill.
When he was an environmental attorney, RFK was part of a legal team that won a nearly $290 million case against Monsanto for a man who claimed his cancer was caused by Roundup: https://archive.is/OezUJ
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No less than 16 Trump administration officials have ties to Bayer’s lobbying or legal network.Firestarter wrote: ↑Fri Dec 27, 2024 9:12 amI already knew that there were connection between Wiles, Bondi and Florida governor DeSantis, there are a lot more interesting links to Ballard…
There are so many potential Ballard Partners scandals that I can’t really figure out which one is the worst.
In 2025, Ballard Partners became the highest-earning lobbying firm in Washington history. In December 2024, Ballard Partners registered to lobby for Bayer. Ballard also lobbies for the American Chemistry Council, which includes Bayer among its corporate members.
Brian Ballard and his boyfriend, Daniel McFaul, who was on Trump’s 2016-2017 presidential transition team, are registered to lobby for both Bayer and the American Chemistry Council that together paid Ballard Partners half a million dollars since Trump was selected for the second time.
Ballard employed Trump's US Attorney General Pam Bondi and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, who has also been a lobbyist for Mercury.
Paul Manafort's Mercury Public Affairs also registered as lobbyists for Bayer in August 2025.
Registered lobbyists for Bayer at Mercury Public Affairs include Bryan Lanza, who was deputy communications director for Trump’s 2016 campaign and for Trump’s first presidential transition team. Since Lanza joined Mercury in 2017, he has appeared on cable news shows as a surrogate and advisor for Trump.
.Firestarter wrote: ↑Fri Oct 11, 2024 6:59 amFormer Trump campaign and transition aide Bryan Lanza is (or was?) a lobbyist at Mercury Public Affairs, where he represented Putin crony Oleg Deripaska’s EN+ Group.
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In November 2019, Bryan Lanza met top aide to Ukrainian president Zelensky, Andrey Yermak, in Kyiv.
Trent Morse was a senior associate at Ballard Partners in 2020-22, before joining Mercury Public Affairs as a senior vice president. As deputy assistant to the President and deputy director of presidential personnel, Morse was part of the team that recruited, vetted and recommended candidates for political appointments. Leaving the White House in August 2025 for a lobbying job.
In 2016-2021,Trump’s deputy assistant to the President for economic policy, Ryan Baasch, was an associate at law firm Latham & Watkins (together with Epstein's friend Kathryn Ruemmler...) that represented Bayer on Roundup settlement issues, Monsanto in a dicamba case (?!?), and Monsanto and CropLife America in a glyphosate warning case.
Bayer allies have also inflitrated the US agency responsible for protecting health and the environment, in charge of regulating chemicals and pesticides – EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP). EPA officials loosened ethics to allow chemical industry lobbyists to now occupy the top 4 spots at the OCSPP: https://usrtk.org/pesticides/tracing-ba ... ashington/
(https://archive.is/Rczqd)
RFK Jr. also spearheaded new federal guidelines for food, which prioritise protein, meat and milk. While the glyphosate executive order has been widely criticised, some have praised the new food guidelines.
The panel of experts that advised on these food guidelines include several members with ties to the meat and dairy industries. Three of the 9 members have been paid by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.
According to Marion Nestle, RFK and his allies were right to criticise previous food guidelines getting influenced by industry, but: “They’ve just done the same thing. If he views the members of previous committees as being sold out to industries, it’s very difficult to understand why the same designation doesn’t apply to these people, except that these people are associated with the meat and dairy industries, and they like that”.
According to professor of nutrition Lindsey Smith Taillie, the administration “handpicked” scientists to support those foregone conclusions, “versus undertaking a neutral review of the science”: https://archive.is/3Zbwi