New research showed the nation's leading pesticide industry trade group had a major hand in changing the Trump administration's Make America Healthy Again report before it was published this spring.
The report was supposed to be a roadmap to getting kids healthy. The MAHA report initially addressed ultra-processed foods, childhood obesity and pesticides. But CropLife America — a trade group including Bayer, Corteva, Syngenta and others — said making changes in favor of chemical makers was its biggest victory of 2025.
Stacy Malkan, co-founder and managing editor of the nonprofit public health research group U.S. Right to Know, who reported on CropLife's influence, said it should come as no surprise given the number of high-level Trump administration officials in key agency positions who were once lobbyists for Bayer and other chemical companies.
"At least 29 that we counted that have direct ties to Bayer's lobbying network. They're either from pesticide industry trade groups, PR or lobby firms. Many people in USDA, over a dozen people in EPA," Malkan outlined.
CropLife America has said it met with agricultural producers across the country as part of a campaign, called "Farmer's Voices Matter," to gather information to help inform the MAHA report. CropLife America's 2025 Impact Report indicated Farmer's Voices Matter was a highly choreographed public relations campaign, combining advertising, thousands of letters to administration officials and a toolkit for agricultural companies to push back on the original MAHA report.
Malkan noted it is emblematic of how lenient the Trump administration has been with pesticide companies.
"They reapproved Dicamba, they're approving PFAS pesticides. It's just like a heyday for the pesticide industry in the Trump administration," Malkan contended.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Monsanto in June, stripping people of their right to sue if they may have contracted cancer from exposure to glyphosate, the active ingredient in the pesticide Roundup.