‘Feeding America Safely’: Pesticides, Regulatory Failures, and America’s Chronic Disease Crisis

March 25, 2026

Originally posted by: Children's Health Defense

A panel of physicians, attorneys, policymakers and farmers gathered Monday at a Heritage Foundation panel to sound the alarm on the growing public health crisis tied to pesticides, ultraprocessed foods and systemic regulatory failures.

The panel, “Feeding America Safely: A Practical Path Forward on Pesticides” — part of Heritage’s Restoring American Wellness initiative — focused extensively on glyphosate, the most widely used herbicide in the world, and the broader pattern of regulatory failure that allows for its continued use.

‘We deserve to be treated with dignity’

Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo kicked off the event with a “fireside chat.” He framed the issue as fundamentally one of informed consent — a principle he argued has been eroded across public health, from COVID-19 policy to food regulation.

“We deserve to be treated with dignity,” Ladapo said. “I can’t respect you if I’m giving you something and lying to you about it.”

Ladapo described Florida’s Exposing Food Toxins initiative, which tests foods for heavy metals and pesticides not listed on labels. He said the goal is not immediate bans but restoring transparency so consumers can make informed decisions.

He told the panel that existing federal frameworks — including loopholes that allow thousands of chemicals to be classified as “generally recognized as safe” — have enabled widespread exposure without rigorous independent testing.

Ladapo said he generally thought that markets should provide the right incentives so that bans on the most dangerous products aren’t necessary. For example, he said people should have accurate facts, not biased information provided by chemical companies.

That said, glyphosate should probably be banned, he said. He cited the concerning effects glyphosate has on the gut microbiome, which he said makes the risks “very large.”

Glyphosate a ‘complex and messy’ issue

Much of the discussion focused on glyphosate, which moderator Jennifer Galardi called a “complex and messy” issue that requires nuance.

Dr. Meryl Nass, a physician and longtime critic of pesticide regulation, said glyphosate’s mechanism to function as an herbicide — disrupting biological pathways in plants and microbes — may also impact human gut bacteria.

“It kills microorganisms in our guts,” Nass said. “That’s a problem because they help us process food and maintain health.”

She also cited evidence of genotoxicity and oxidative stress, mechanisms linked to cancer and chronic disease.

Trial attorney Pedram Esfandiary, who litigated major cases against Monsanto, described internal company documents showing alleged corporate misconduct, including ghostwritten studies and efforts to discredit independent researchers.

“There was huge evidence of manipulating data, ghostwriting, paying scientists,” he said.

Those revelations helped juries award billions in damages to plaintiffs who developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma after long-term exposure to glyphosate.

Another key strategy that Monsanto — the original Roundup producer, acquired in 2018 by Bayer — used was to “attack, attack, attack, attack the scientists” who were publishing data linking glyphosate to cancer and other health issues.

These strategies, along with the company’s “really cozy relationship” with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, led to glyphosate being allowed in U.S. products for decades, Esfandiary said.

That relationship gave Monsanto/Bayer a defense that was “the best one money can buy: the EPA says it’s safe,” Esfandiary said.

Bayer has ‘multi-pronged’ strategy to avoid legal liability for injuries caused by glyphosate

Speakers warned that ongoing legal and legislative efforts could limit accountability for pesticide manufacturers.

Nass outlined what she described as a “multi-pronged strategy” by industry to secure liability protections — through Congress, state laws, the courts and federal policy.

“If any one of these works,” she said, “Bayer will get its liability shield.”

Panelists compared such efforts to existing protections for vaccine manufacturers, arguing they distort market incentives and weaken consumer protections.

Ladapo said fighting Bayer’s strategies to shield the company from legal prosecution for failing to warn about health risks linked to glyphosate is like playing “whack-a-mole.”

Regarding politicians who promote that immunity, Ladapo said, “That’s just a profound betrayal to me.”

‘You cannot have human health until you first have soil health’

Despite criticizing chemical-intensive agriculture, speakers emphasized that farmers themselves are not the enemy — they’re often trapped in a system built around chemical inputs and maximizing yields.

Rick Clark, a fifth-generation Indiana farmer who transitioned to regenerative organic practices, said eliminating glyphosate overnight would create “sheer chaos” in the agricultural sector.

Instead, he advocated for a gradual transition supported by education and policy reform.

“You cannot have human health until you first have soil health,” Clark said. He added that farmer education had to be at the top of the priority list so that farmers could start to make that change.

Clark reported that his farm now operates without synthetic inputs, maintaining profitability — though not maximizing yield — and producing healthier food.

Glyphosate is ‘the dirty word at the moment’

Not all panelists agreed on the extent of the risk posed by glyphosate.

Heritage policy analyst Miles Pollard cautioned against overstating glyphosate’s risks, noting that most studies link significant harm to high exposure levels, such as those experienced by pesticide applicators.

He argued that it doesn’t pose a major toxicity risk at lower levels. He did concede that less is known about the non-cancer risks from glyphosate that are nonetheless serious, like its effect on the gut microbiome.

He also warned that banning glyphosate could lead to replacement with more toxic alternatives.

Glyphosate is “the dirty word at the moment,” Pollard said, but banning that one chemical may not lead to better outcomes if it is just replaced with something similar.

Still, he supported increased transparency, arguing that consumers — not regulators — should ultimately drive market change.

Across ideological differences, panelists agreed on one point: the rise in chronic disease cannot be ignored.

Speakers linked increases in cancer, autoimmune disorders and metabolic conditions to long-term environmental exposures — from pesticides and food additives to radiation and ultraprocessed foods.

“You can’t load bodies up with arsenic. You can’t load bodies up with glyphosate. You can’t load bodies up with lead or mercury even at small amounts for a long period of time and think that it has no effect,” Ladapo said. “I mean, it’s just not a reasonable conclusion.”

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What comes next?

While solutions varied — from regenerative agriculture to regulatory reform — the panel converged on a central demand: transparency.

Whether through labeling, independent science, legal accountability, or letting markets decide, speakers argued that Americans must be given the information needed to make informed choices about what they eat and how it is produced.

They broadly argued that the issue is not simply glyphosate — but a broader system in which economic incentives, regulatory gaps and information asymmetry shape what ends up on Americans’ plates.

Watch ‘Feeding America Safely’ here:

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