Did the U.S. Supreme Court rule that Missouri cannot add health warnings to pesticide labels?

Monsanto Co. v. Durnell bars all subnational entities, including Missouri, from adding health warnings to pesticide labels that are different from the federal government’s.

Missouri farmer John Durnell claimed he’d developed cancer after using Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller and sued the company for not disclosing the pesticide’s alleged cancer risk on the product label.

Missouri’s “strict liability” doctrine holds companies legally accountable for failing to warn about the dangerous nature of a product. On those grounds, Durnell was awarded $1.25 million by a Missouri jury.

The decision was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 7-2 ruling against Durnell, held that under federal law, states cannot impose labeling requirements “in addition to or different from” those required by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

While the EPA and European Union agencies have stated Roundup is unlikely to be carcinogenic, the World Health Organization has deemed it “probably carcinogenic to humans.”