Des Moines, IA — Today, the Iowa Senate Judiciary Committee voted 11-7 to advance Bayer’s Cancer Gag Act (SSB 1051). The bill now heads to a Senate floor vote. The vote came one week after more than 150 Iowans rallied at the Capitol against the bill, which would shield pesticide manufacturers from lawsuits related to the health impacts of their products. Photos from last week’s rally are available here.

Recent polling from the Iowa Association for Justice found that 89% of respondents oppose pesticide immunity legislation, including 87% of Republican respondents.

In response, Food & Water Watch Iowa Organizer Michaelyn Mankel issued the following statement:

“Bayer’s Cancer Gag Act is greedy, cruel and wildly unpopular. Pesticide corporations have spent decades profiting off toxic pesticides — now they want to protect their bottom line by silencing those strong enough to fight back.

“Iowans seeking answers to our rising cancer rates need action to clean up the chemicals poisoning our communities. Bayer’s Cancer Gag Act must be dead on arrival on the Senate floor.”

Iowa has the fastest rising cancer rate in the country — the Iowa Cancer Registry predicted 21,000 new, invasive cancer diagnoses last year, and 6,100 cancer-related deaths. Bayer’s push to limit liability comes as the corporation has spent over $11 billion settling more than 100,000 cancer lawsuits related to their Roundup product, whose active ingredient glyphosate is under investigation as a possible carcinogen. Roundup is widely used in Iowa: In any given year, more than half the state is covered in the pesticide.