Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to endorse increased production of a chemical herbicide he has previously called a carcinogen has sparked a furious reaction among his followers and stressed the MAGA-MAHA alliance.
The health secretary explained in a post to X on Sunday night he was backing a directive from President Donald Trump to boost manufacturing of agricultural chemicals he says “put Americans at risk” in order to reduce dependence on them from “adversarial nations,” alarming supporters of his Make America Healthy Again movement.
“We can secure supply chains without giving the most evil corporation in the world immunity,” Vani Hari, a social media influencer and Kennedy supporter, wrote on X, referencing Trump’s move to increase production of the herbicide, glyphosate, which is sold as Roundup by the German conglomerate Bayer.
Hari and other MAHA advocates made their displeasure known last week after Trump signed the executive order. It not only calls for more domestic production of phosphorus, an element used in defense products and agricultural weedkillers like glyphosate, but also confers legal immunity to manufacturers working to comply. Kennedy’s endorsement of the policy on Sunday sparked an existential dilemma for some MAHA devotees who now are wondering if he has abandoned his principles in service of Trump.
Kennedy in his post said food production would falter without glyphosate and promised the administration is working to gradually shift farmers off chemicals used to kill weeds and pests.
“Pesticides and herbicides are toxic by design, engineered to kill living organisms,” Kennedy wrote in his post. “Unfortunately, our agricultural system depends heavily on these chemicals.”
A person close to the White House told POLITICO Kennedy was not aware the executive order was coming and that its political ramifications had not been fully considered.
“They made Bobby walk the plank on it,” the person, granted anonymity to discuss the imbroglio, said. The person said the initial order stemmed from a threat from Bayer that it was considering halting production of what is the world’s most commonly used herbicide.
The uproar on Monday prompted MAHA Action, run by Kennedy's longtime publisher Tony Lyons, to call out those condemning the executive order. In a post to Substack, the group said some were overstating what the order would do by claiming it provides blanket immunity or would overrule pending product liability suits. The unsigned post urged MAHA supporters to trust Trump's reasoning and urged them to push the administration to help farmers break from glyphosate. "We know many of you are angry. That anger is understandable, and we share the urgency behind it," the post said.
Still, Kennedy’s explanation — that the order was a temporary measure to reduce U.S. dependence while he sought healthier ways of combating weeds and pests — left many MAHA advocates cold.
They said they saw the endorsement as part of a continuing softening on glyphosate following a May report from a Kennedy-backed commission that said it and another herbicide, atrazine, were present in the blood of children and pregnant women at “alarming levels.” Studies on glyphosate “have noted a range of possible health effects, ranging from reproductive and developmental disorders as well as cancers, liver inflammation and metabolic disturbances,” the MAHA Commission Report said.
Nonetheless, a follow-up report in September aimed at combating the causes of childhood disease did not mention glyphosate. In December the Trump administration sided with Bayer in a pending Supreme Court case. If Bayer wins, it would toss out thousands of lawsuits alleging Roundup causes cancer.
Kennedy, who worked as an environmental lawyer before joining the Trump administration, once sued Roundup’s maker over the product’s alleged links to cancer. In 2018, he won a multi-million-dollar lawsuit in which he argued it caused a school groundskeeper to develop the disease.
MAHA supporters said the administration was now undermining such suits and that Kennedy was disingenuous to back Trump.
“Bobby — I support the work you’re doing, but this misses the point entirely, and you know it,” Tom Renz, a Kennedy supporter, posted on X in response to Kennedy’s missive. “Trump provided what will effectively be immunity for pesticide makers that are knowingly poisoning people.”
Another MAHA supporter and health and wellness influencer, Alex Clark, agreed. “We can ABSOLUTELY secure our agricultural supply chains without handing blanket immunity to the very corporations that helped create this mess in the first place,” she wrote on X.
Farmers and Bayer have pushed back hard against Kennedy. After the first MAHA Commission Report, senators from agricultural states met with Kennedy and demanded he lay off their herbicides and pesticides.
Bayer CEO Bill Anderson has previously said it could be forced to only sell Roundup in states with a liability shield due to the billions in litigation costs the company is facing. Bayer, which says Roundup does not cause cancer, last week proposed a $7.25B settlement of class action suits involving the product.
As lawsuits against Bayer continue to mount, the company, through industry group Modern Ag Alliance, is waging a multi-state campaign to get legislation passed at the state level that would protect it from lawsuits. So far this year, at least six states have introduced bills that would limit their exposure to product liability lawsuits, according to the National Agricultural Law Center, a federally funded center that provides resources on food law.
Bayer is also pushing for language in the farm bill Congress is set to consider this year that would make it harder to sue pesticide manufacturers.
Kelly Ryerson, another MAHA supporter who advocates for stronger guardrails around pesticides, said Kennedy’s support for the Trump order has caused a crisis within the MAHA movement that could impact the 2026 elections.
“It's sort of the final straw,” she said.
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