Bear with me as I enumerate why the pesticide liability shield would be a game-changer that will take us down the drain. We must put Congress under a microscope over this issue.
Please read this.
Some things are extremely important but they get lost among the barrage of things that try to grab our attention. Why do I think the pesticide liability shield is critically important?
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Vaccines are the only consumer product to have received a liability shield. It came with a promise that citizens could apply for benefits outside the legal system, without a trial if injured. Pesticides are only the second consumer product that could get such a shield, but this time with no promise of a path to benefits for injury. Do we really want to encourage more and more industries to seek a magic shield from liability for their products? This is a terrible direction for our nation to be going in.
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No one wants to get cancer or any severe, preventable disease. The pesticides in our food cause cancer, endocrine disruption and fertility loss and chronic illnesses like Parkinson’s disease. The US spends $14,000 per person per year on healthcare, most of that on the taxpayer’s dime, and as a country we cannot afford to be any sicker.
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Providing a liability shield incentives a race to the bottom for product safety. Do we really want to encourage more dangerous products to be sold? When penalties for harming the public are removed, the public is practically begging to be harmed.
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The Constitutional Amendments are critically important. They guarantee us our rights. They supersede laws made by Congress. And they do not permit the issuing of waivers of liability, which preclude due process (5th Amendment) and everyone’s right in a controversy to a jury trial (7th Amendment). Nor do they give the Congress unlimited authority to rule over us (9th Amendment). See the Amendments below. Even if members of Congress support a liability shield, the concept of one is clearly unconstitutional. Members of Congress swore an oath to defend the Constitution. Have they now sworn an oath to defend Bayer?
5th amendment
“No person shall… be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law…”
7th amendment
“In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.”
9th amendment
“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
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The pesticide liability shield is a LOSE-LOSE proposition for every American. It virtually guarantees that our food will be exposed to more harmful chemicals, with no recourse for federal agencies to do anything about it. The only winner is the pesticide industry.
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WHY would any Congressperson vote in favor of pesticide immunity? Bayer has put aside $16 BILLION dollars for future claims for glyphosate, with 177,000 lawsuits pending. How much of those funds have gone toward getting this pesticide shield enacted?
Let me put this into a nutshell:
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It is unconstitutional. This liability shield will remove Constitutional protections from American citizens.
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It will invariably make us sicker, there will be more cancers, and our food will be more highly contaminated with toxicants.
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It will cost the taxpayer more money in healthcare costs.
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It is said that Mussolini defined fascism as “the merger of state and corporate power.” Are we moving toward this merger?
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It benefits no Americans, only the pesticide industry and the German Bayer corporation, which ran its own slave labor concentration camp during World War II and has a long history of unethical behavior.
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The only possible reason for Congress to vote in favor of this unconstitutional rider is bribery, and probably a large amount of bribery.
https://apnews.com/article/bayer-roundup-glyphosate-pesticide-liability-cancer-7d7885e55e228fae8ed8ec7b207a65b8
