A federal appeals court has determined that California’s glyphosate warning is unconstitutional. The ruling comes from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. California’s Proposition 65 requires warning labels on products that contain chemicals that cause cancer or have other reproductive effects. A coalition of agricultural groups including the National Association of Wheat Growers (NAWG) had challenged the warning label requirements for glyphosate. Six years later, the appeals court upheld a lower court’s injunction against the labeling requirements.
“NAWG members knew we had a strong case and the decisions were based on the facts and science surrounding the safety of the product,” NAWG President Brent Cheyne said in a news release. “California’s Proposition 65 requirement threatened the use of glyphosate by requiring false and misleading labels on products that may contain glyphosate. We are pleased to see this action taken today by the court.”
NAWG was joined by other groups including the Agricultural Retailers Association, CropLife America, and United States Durum Growers Association. In a 2 to 1 decision, the court agreed with the plaintiffs that the glyphosate warning violated the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights to free speech.
A central issue in the case was the information used as a basis requiring a carcinogen warning under Prop 65. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has found glyphosate not to be carcinogenic in its own evaluations. However, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) identified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic.” In its ruling, the three-judge panel cited the disagreement as a central point in its ruling.
“The panel concluded that the government’s proposed Prop 65 warnings as applied to glyphosate were not purely factual and uncontroversial, and thus were subject to intermediate scrutiny,” the judges noted in their decision. “Moreover, saying that something is carcinogenic or has serious deleterious health effects— without a strong scientific consensus that it does—is controversial.”
Brian German
Ag News Director / AgNet West