Interview With Dr. Alexandra Muñoz – Stop The Bill That Lets Pesticide Companies Off The Hook
Note: This interview took place at the end of July 2025.
HILDA LABRADA GORE: Provisions included in federal bills sometimes slip through practically unnoticed, even when they will have a major impact on the American public. This is the case for Provision 453 and the House Appropriations Bill for fiscal year 2026. The provision would, in effect, create a liability shield for pesticide companies, protecting them from lawsuits. This means that if you are made sick by their products, you would have no legal recourse, even though scientific evidence points to harm caused by the products. Molecular toxicologist Dr. Alexandra Muñoz helps us understand what’s at stake.
ALEXANDRA MUÑOZ: Farmers have been using pesticides for a long time without a liability shield. The companies that sell them are looking for a legal form of immunity so that they’re not liable for any lawsuits for harmful impacts from their products.
HG: Why are they looking for that now?
AM: That’s an important question. It’s because Bayer, which purchased Monsanto in 2018, is receiving so many lawsuits for cancer caused by Roundup. They’re paying out millions to people who have been harmed by this product. Instead of changing the label on their product, they’re looking for a liability shield. They’re looking for a way out so that they don’t have to pay anyone anymore.
HG: What would happen if they just relabeled it?
AM: If they just changed the label and put a cancer warning on it, then they wouldn’t be liable for any of these failure-to-warn lawsuits because they would have warned the people. They don’t want to do that because they know that if they put a cancer warning on their product, people are going to be less likely to buy it, and it’s going to affect their sales. If you saw something that said, “If you get this on your skin, it could lead to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma,” would you buy it?
HG: No. They are lobbying to get this liability and immunity protection in place. Why is this a secret vote?
AM: Some language was slipped into an appropriations bill. In the appropriations committee, an amendment was proposed to remove Section 453, which contains this immunity provision. Instead of doing a roll call vote where we could see how everyone voted on that amendment to remove it, they did a voice vote. We don’t know exactly who was opposed to it and who was in support of this amendment to remove it.
HG: Does that mean that politicians don’t want it to be known which way they voted?
AM: That’s exactly what’s going on here. They are realizing that people are very angry about this. They’ve had moms calling all week saying that they don’t want this. Instead of standing up for their own position, they’re hiding it so that it doesn’t become a voting issue when it comes to the primaries in 2026.
HG: I heard that the vote was evenly split and that the Republicans were for this pesticide liability and immunity.
AM: That’s what we’re seeing. I’ve been working on this in Tennessee and North Carolina, where this kind of legislation was proposed earlier in the year. In both states, all of the Democrats initially were opposed to the liability shield, and all of the Republicans were in support of it. It is falling out on partisan lines.
HG: Why would any party support this?
AM: I can’t understand it myself, but it seems like they want to protect businesses, and they want to protect farmers. They’re hearing from the company itself that has been proposing this legislation that if they don’t give them this immunity and liability shield, they’re going to go out of business, and that their favorite farming chemicals are not going to be available anymore and they are saying there might even be a global food shortage.
HG: Some farmers have gotten accustomed to using glyphosate with certain crops. If this goes through, maybe they think they will be sunk.
AM: I don’t think that’s the case because this type of legislation has already failed two years in a row in Iowa, and they’re still selling their chemicals there. This legislation isn’t trying to ban any chemicals. It’s leaving things the way they are. The only risk is that Bayer may decide that it’s not worth it for them to sell these chemicals here because of all the lawsuits that they’re facing financially. Here’s the catch. Glyphosate isn’t patented. There are other companies selling glyphosate. The farmers who want to use that will still have access to it even if Bayer goes out of business.
They’ve run this massive fear campaign with ads and so much lobbying. They’ve gone to all the farmers directly and told them that we need this piece of legislation or we’re going to go out of business. They have genuinely convinced people across the country about their narrative. That’s why they’re pushing it, and that’s why they’re having success in some places.
HG: I understand that this immunity clause in the appropriations bill would protect both foreign and domestic companies. I’m bringing this up because paraquat, another widely used herbicide, is banned in China, but a Chinese company sells it here.
AM: That’s true. It’s wild when you think about that. They’re selling something in the U.S. that they’ve banned in their own country. Paraquat is known to cause Parkinson’s disease, which is a neurodegenerative disease. They’re asking for immunity to do that as well because they’re also facing lawsuits.
HG: To reiterate, you are not even talking about banning paraquat or glyphosate—you’re saying that these companies need to be held accountable for the consequences. Whereas if this gets passed, someone who gets cancer or some degenerative health condition wouldn’t have a leg to stand on in court against these companies.
AM: That’s right. We’re not trying to ban anything by being in opposition to this piece of legislation. This legislation has nothing to do with taking any pesticides on or off the market. What it does impact is how those things are labeled and whether those labels are considered sufficient to warn people about the actual risks of the products. The way that they’ve structured the language and these different types of legislation give them immunity from lawsuits.
HG: How did they get this in an appropriations bill?
AM: This is so tricky. They’re getting sneakier in how they’re trying to sneak this language through. At the beginning of 2025, they ran it as its own bill in different states, and they lost in a lot of states.
I’m not sure exactly how things happen, but they have started to be sneakier. I watched it happen in North Carolina, where they snuck it into the Farm Act there. It’s a lot harder to fight something like this when you have to get it removed from a big piece of legislation. It’s pretty clear that they don’t even want anyone to know what they’re trying to do. The language of Section 453 is so confusing in terms of how it creates immunity. When you first read it, it doesn’t sound like it’s giving a liability shield or immunity at all.
HG: What does it sound like?
AM: It’s pretty unclear. If you’ve never read anything like this, it sounds like they’re doing something to the labels, and you don’t even know what it means.
HG: I heard a doctor say that the label language sounds very benign, but she said, “They were aware that glyphosate was harmful thirty years ago, and here we are now, still trying to get the product labeled.” This shows how slowly the wheels of the EPA turn. It makes it hard for consumers to know what they’re using or what’s being used on the soil and on their food.
AM: Exactly. The label is so important. That’s why there’s this big fight over the label on pesticides and food products. Who can put what on the label is what these big industries are trying to control. They want the EPA to be the only one putting information on the pesticide labels because they’ve captured the EPA. They figured out how to game the system so that when they submit their own data to the EPA, they can structure and then write their own label. They’ve gotten it so that their product, which does cause cancer, has no cancer warning on it.
This piece of legislation blocks the obligation. It blocks their ability to voluntarily update their own label with a cancer warning. The reason that’s important is that when they still have the ability to voluntarily update their label—and they don’t do it and don’t properly warn people—they can be held liable in court for that. That’s when they lose these lawsuits. If they block the funding to update labels voluntarily, they can go to court and say, “It was impossible for us to update the label. There’s no funding to do it through that mechanism. We can put on the label only what the EPA tells us to put. Therefore, our hands are clean.”
HG: If this passes, they don’t have a legal obligation to voluntarily update the label, but why would they?
AM: They still would have a legal obligation to warn under the state product liability code, but under the federal law, it would be impossible for them to comply if this goes through. That creates a special situation called “impossibility preemption” [in which federal law preempts state law] that gets them off the hook in these lawsuits. That’s what they’re after here.
HG: What happens if this passes? Will more people get sick without recourse? Will life continue as it has, and we won’t even notice? What do you expect the ramifications to be?
AM: There are some serious ramifications of this legislation. The first thing that’s going to happen is that we are going to know that the labels that are on the products can’t be updated to reflect the most recent science through this voluntary pathway of label updating. That means that when new science emerges, it’s going to take even longer to get it onto the label to warn people about it. This is an industry that is known to sell dangerous chemicals. These are known toxins. There are known carcinogens, known neurotoxins and known endocrine-disrupting chemicals. There is going to be more harm to people if this goes through because they’re already selling things that they know are dangerous without the proper warnings. What are they going to sell when they know they can’t be sued?
HG: Let’s say the legislation gets shut down. What happens then?
AM: We’re just back at the status quo. They’re still selling all these dangerous chemicals, and there’s still a fight over what’s on the label, but at least in some states, they potentially can mandate additional warnings. And, you can still sue them, which is more important than it might sound. Being able to sue a company like this is an important mechanism of accountability. During those lawsuits and the discovery process, they have to hand over all of these internal documents. That’s so important here. That’s where we’ve seen the fraud and collusion that has happened within Monsanto and also Syngenta related to paraquat. We see these emails where they lay out the fact that they don’t want to do toxicology testing because it’s going to lead to results that they know they don’t want to see. They say that they can’t use that toxicologist. They need to find someone who wants to work with them their way. They’re going to stop this test. All of that information about how they’re acting fraudulently is available when we can still sue them. It allows for the transparency and accountability that is so important for this industry and everybody’s health and safety.
HG: When I spoke with regenerative agriculture activist Kelly Ryerson, she expressed concern that if glyphosate were ever to be pulled from the market, companies would put another even more dangerous and unhealthy toxic pesticide on the market.
AM: That’s what they have done. They’ve changed the Roundup formulations that are available for home and garden use and commercial use, and have replaced glyphosate in some of those with four other compounds. Some of them are seemingly more acutely toxic than glyphosate. Two ingredients are banned in other countries as well. There’s clearly no motivation in this industry to make choices that protect people’s health. That’s the most concerning thing here. They don’t care, and we can see that from an array of choices that they’ve made. They will likely start selling something more dangerous.
HG: Let’s talk about what we can do. You and others—without any compensation, and you’re not professional lobbyists—are raising awareness on the Hill. Can we do that wherever we live?
AM: You can raise awareness. It’s so important that we get the word out about what’s going on. Share information with your community, family and state legislators. This could be coming to a lot of states again in 2026. It doesn’t look like they’re giving up yet. Raising awareness online and in person that this industry is trying to achieve this and that we all need to work together to stop it is important.
HG: Are PFAS “forever chemicals” involved in this legislation?
AM: This piece of legislation regulates twelve hundred active ingredients that have been registered at the EPA and are regulated under FIFRA: the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act. It includes all kinds of things: pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and rodenticides. Some of those products do contain PFAS. They are not necessarily the active ingredient—they could be contaminants in those products. There are also other uses of PFAS that are not part of chemicals regulated under FIFRA. It won’t affect all of them. Flame retardants wouldn’t be in this group of chemicals, but there are some things that do include those chemicals. Those types of things would get immunity under this provision if it goes through.
HG: In other words, if our family were to get sick because we have exposure to some of these forever chemicals, no one would take our case.
AM: They have a perfect legal defense if they get this. The lawyers are unlikely to even try to take a case. That’s part of what’s so sneaky here. You can still technically sue. It’s not blocking you from suing. That’s what they like to emphasize when they’re getting the legislators to talk about it. They tell them that you can still sue. We heard that so many times in North Carolina and Tennessee. That may be true, but you can’t make it very far with that action. It might get dismissed at the first motion to dismiss, or the lawyer might not even take it up because they know that there’s this defense already there for the companies. HG: What do you say to the naysayers who say, “You’re anti-farmer,” or “It’s easy enough for you to say you’re against these pesticides and forever chemicals, but we need these products to keep farming the way we’re doing it.”
AM: I would say that having this or not having this legislation isn’t banning any chemicals. That’s important to keep in mind. The company can still sell what it wants to sell. All we’re saying is to leave things the way they are. These companies still need to be accountable, even if an important industry depends on them, and probably more so, because do they want to be potentially poisoning the people who are their biggest customers?
HG: It always boggles my mind when I think of the people who work at these companies. They are people, like you and me, who are trying to feed their families and ostensibly do good for the world. Do you think some of them are unaware?
AM: I do. I’ve spoken to a number of farmers and legislators in the last several months while I’ve been working on this. I’ve had multiple people sit across from me and tell me, “I’m a farmer. I use glyphosate or 2,4-D. I’ve been using it my whole life. It’s my favorite pesticide, and I’ve never gotten sick from it.” That’s the cognitive dissonance we encounter. People have the experience of using the chemicals and not getting cancer, so it’s hard for them to understand that they do cause cancer. That’s the tricky thing about cancer. Something can be a carcinogen and, in some cases, it will cause cancer, and in others, it won’t. That is to be expected.
HG: When you say the person says, “I haven’t gotten cancer,” I’m imagining in my mind an ellipsis: “I haven’t gotten canceryet.” These toxins accumulate.
AM: You’re right. Toxins accumulate, and their impact also accumulates. That’s what a lot of people don’t understand about cancer. I’m a molecular toxicologist, which means that I’ve taken a lot of time to study the molecular mechanisms at the level of the cell of how these toxins lead to cancer. What’s interesting about this process is that there are a lot of steps to it, and it usually takes a lot of time. There’s a delay between the exposure and the development of cancer. During that process, these long-term, low-dose exposures can lead to the progressive development of cancer. Sometimes, it can be hard to put two and two together because you could have been using it for a number of years and not gotten cancer until one day, it shows up. That’s part of it. There also needs to be a deeper understanding of what causes this process, what promotes it, and what that looks like. It can be an acute exposure, and it can also be an acute exposure combined with low-dose exposures or a low-dose, long-term exposure.
HG: People who have studied glyphosate say that it can be found in our urine. It’s because it’s in the air, the water and the food, right?
AM: It’s showing up in all types of biomonitoring that people are doing—in their urine and in their blood. The exposure can happen through drift exposure and other pathways as well. We are in a moment where there are a lot of exposures in a lot of ways. Everyone is impacted by the presence of these chemicals.
HG: As a toxicologist, what would you recommend in terms of lowering our everyday exposure?
AM: There are a lot of ways that you can make an intervention in your daily life to reduce your exposure. Especially if you have kids, you want to take some time to think about that. What I teach parents about in my course is how to think like a toxicologist. You have to start thinking like a toxicologist to reduce your exposure because it’s so tricky. It can be in anything. You have to start recognizing that this type of material might have toxins in it that leach out and can affect your kids. You can start changing out the materials that you use. Plastic, for example, leaches so many endocrine-disrupting chemicals. Reduce your family’s exposure to plastic as much as you can.
Everything is coated with something. What’s that coating made of? More importantly, is that coating leaching and releasing its chemicals into whatever your thing is? A lot of times, it’s hard to answer that question without measuring something. Even the manufacturers who say that they’re being “green” and taking precautions may use a new chemical and say it is safe. But how much have they tested it? Who tested it? Is it simply that there are not yet any data that say that it’s dangerous? We also have to look out for these false claims about things being “green” or “nontoxic.” It’s hard for me to believe that it exists. It might be that they haven’t tested it yet, and that there are no data yet. That is a dangerous deception that’s happening.
HG: This is why the Wise Traditions lifestyle espouses so many things that are natural, including the fabric of the clothes that we wear and our cookware. We’re looking for what our ancestors used as much as possible.
AM: There are so many things we have to look out for. It can be so overwhelming for people when they start to see the landscape of toxins, and they want to implement changes, especially when they’ve got young kids. They suddenly have to change certain routines and the way they are doing things. That’s what I try to help with in my course for parents. Focusing on simpler solutions in a lot of cases, like less processed things (because we still don’t always know what’s in something), is usually a good way to reduce a lot of exposure.
HG: It’s also important to raise our voices at the macro level about things like this immunity legislation.
AM: It’s so important. We’re at a moment where the piece of legislation that we are watching passed the Appropriations Committee in the House with Section 453 in it, which contains the immunity provision. There’s a chance that it could be brought to the House for a vote after the summer break. That could happen quickly, or it could take a couple of months. We don’t know. It’s important to contact your representative and tell them that you do not support this provision, and that you want it completely removed from the Federal Interior Appropriations Bill.
HG: If you just cut and paste an email, that gets less attention and has less pull with the legislator than if you make a personal call and use your own words about your concerns.
AM: Exactly. It’s so great if you can write your own email from the heart, letting legislators know that you are genuinely concerned about this as a parent or as a constituent. Make it personal about your life. Why don’t you want this? Why are you close to it? It’s so that they know that they’re hearing directly from their own constituents that this is an important issue that they’re aware of, and the constituents don’t want it. Ultimately, it might be a voting issue for these representatives during the next election.
HG: If you take off your molecular toxicology hat for a moment, what is one thing the reader could do to improve their health and get them started in the right direction?
AM: Focusing on having good water is critically important because we drink so much water every day. If you’re drinking tap water and you’ve never had it tested in your home, you might want to consider doing that and getting a filter for it. If you’re drinking bottled water from plastic containers all the time, then you might want to move away from that because it has a high microplastic exposure. Anything you can do to improve your water so that you know you’re drinking water that doesn’t have toxins in it all the time would be an important first step for people to take.
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The Wise Traditions podcast launched in January 2016! Weʼre so thrilled that weʼve been able to offer 10 years of content to a broad audience. In celebration of this milestone, below we highlight some of our most downloaded episodes of all time! Give any of these a listen on our website westonaprice.org or on the podcast platform of your choice! And share your favorites with friends and family! Enjoy!
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