Dear ladies and gentlemen,
My name is Hans van Scharen, I am researcher for lobby watchdog Corporate Europe Observatory in Brussels, speaking as an authorised representative from Coordination against BAYER Dangers and would like to speak on the ongoing international debate on glyphosate , the US litigations and the undemocratic efforts by Bayer to change laws that protect people and planet.
But I would firstly like to give a voice to the past, far beyond quarterly results, because history influences who we are and how we act today. My grandfather Karel van Scharen was transported in 1942 from Antwerp/Belgium by the nazis to Auschwitz to do forced labor in the factories of IG Farben a company which consisted of 3 German chemical companies of which Bayer, and which was officially dissolved only 22 years ago. We have never seen a pay cheque yet. Which is of course a detail in view of the huge criminal crimes against humanity that IG Farben was involved in. My grandfather survived the War and his pay cheque was a lifelong trauma. IG Farben was among the major industrial players that from an early stage financed the rise of Hitler’s movement and played a fundamental role during the devastating WWII.
Tragic Historic events like this should allow us to learn and to prevent similar private and collective misjudgments and mistakes. It is not enough to put a statue for these forced laborers in front of Bayers headquarters, this history and lessons learned should be en-rooted deeply in the DNA of the company and imply a historic responsibility and have a lasting impact on corporate behavior. But unfortunately, today we see Bayer as a major European company kissing the ring of a new and shocking dictatorship in the making right in front of our eyes: the one of Donald Trump in Washington. You might find these comparisions not appropriate, but I’m not the only one. Vice-US president Al Gore did the same just yesterday.
Bayer’s lobbying of governments everywhere in the world is oftentimes done in the most direct of ways, including in the US. Such as when former Bayer’s Chief Executive Werner Baumann met and promised then president-elect Donald Trump an $8 billion investment, and 3,000 new US jobs, if Washington regulators gave the green light to Monsanto-Bayer merger, which proved to be devastating both for the company as for the agricultural world.
More recently, Mr Bill Anderson was the only CEO of a German DAX company to personally attend Trump’s inauguration this year, accompanied by BAYER’s US CEO Sebastian Guth. Mr Guth posted on social media: „Congratulations to President Trump and Vice President Vance on today’s inauguration.” Guth reflected on one line in particular and I quote. „Theimpossible is what we do best. Nowhere is that more true than in science. Whether developing potential breakthrough treatments in Parkinson’s disease or bringing life-saving medicines to help people live better, more fulfilling lives, it is about makingtheimpossiblepossible.” end of quote. Mr Guth then said he was “ready to do his part in working with the Trump administration to make the impossible possible for all Americans.“
Apart from the open support for the Trump administration this reference to Parkinsons disease made my stomach turn.
My father developed Parkinsons disease, being exposed a lot during his life to pesticide use in the fields. The incidence of Parkinson’s disease (PD), the number of new cases diagnosed per year, is currently on a high in the western hemisphere. In the US it is 50% higher than previously estimated. With approximately 90,000 new cases diagnosed in the US per year.
Parkinson’s disease has more than doubled globally over the past 20 years, and is expected to double again in the next 20. It is now one of the fastest-growing neurological disorders in the world, outpacing stroke and multiple sclerosis. The disease causes the progressive death of dopamine- producing neurons and gradually robs people of movement, speech and, eventually, cognition. There is no cure.
Scientific study reveal that pesticide exposure may significantly increase the possibility of developing Parkinson’s disease. As renowned Dutch scientist and neurologist Mr Bas Bloem recently said in Politico and I quote: Parkinson’s isn’t just bad luck, It can be caused! Parkinson’s is a man-made disease; And the tragedy is that we’re not even trying to prevent it.” end of quote. In a 2024 paper co-authored with U.S. neurologist Ray Dorsey, Mr Bloem wrote that Parkinson’s is “predominantly an environmental disease” — a condition shaped less by genetics and more by prolonged exposure to toxicants like air pollution, industrial solvents and, above all, pesticides. Bas Bloem said : “Parkinson’s was a very rare disease until the early 20th century. Then with the agricultural revolution, chemical revolution, and the explosion of pesticide use, rates started to climb.”
Bayer simply denies any link between glyphosate and development of Parkinsons just as with cancer. But it is impossible to make such statements because it is simply not being tested. The regulatory tests in the EU isolate individual chemicals, rarely examining how they interact in the real world. A 2020 study in Japan showed how dangerous Bayer’s assumption may be, because it showed that glyphosate in combination with other chemicals, the cocktail effect caused dramatically more brain cell loss than either substance alone.I am here today to use my voice to hold Bayer accountable.
For me Bayer is more and more like the famous novel character that had two faces from Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: one character – the agro-chemical side – that makes people and planet sick by poisoning them, while the other side – the pharmaceutical one – claims to work hard to make ill people better.
A cynical mind would say: that sounds like a perfect business model! Now I’m sure that most shareholders consider Bayer as a responsible company that considers the world and societies in which it operates. I’m sure that the members board consider themselves as people doing good for their company and for the world.
But I’m also sure that by living on a daily basis with the short term vision and the high pressure of delivering on shareholders value, by the quarterly reporting, the irrational movements on stock exchange, the merciless global competition stripped of any morality that it is very easy to lose track of what is right and what is wrong.
And what is simply wrong from a moral and democratic perspective is that Bayer is trying to strip American citizen from their legal right to file a legal complaint when they claim to develop cancer from Roundup.
Yesterday over 100 civil society organisations from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean and beyond, published an Open Letter to Bayer’s shareholder regarding the company’s ongoing very costly lobbying activities, in particular those deployed in the US at the expense of US citizens’ rights. In our view, these activities do not live up to Bayer’s own Code of Conduct, nor to general principles of corporate responsibility, such as the International Code of Conduct on Pesticide Management and the basic principles of the UN Global Compact.
In 2024, Mr Bill Anderson stated that in “building a company, (…) a shared sense of integrity and a strong ethical code are absolutely essential” and called upon “everyone in Team Bayer (…) to ensure we’re acting with integrity”.
However, for at least the past two years and till today, Bayer is waging an intensive lobbying campaign in the US which goes far beyond merely “communicating a person’s or organisation’s interests to politicians and institutions that create policies and regulatory frameworks” as Mr Anderson described it.
Over the past decade, 181,000 US plaintiffs have filed lawsuits against Bayer, arguing they were not informed of the dangers of using glyphosate-based Roundup. Bayer is responding by lobbying federal and state authorities to block citizens from taking producers to court when they sufferdamage to their health after using their toxic products. As reported in the Washington Post, a draft of the US Farm Bill contained a section, “drafted with the aid of Bayer”, that would prevent state and local authorities from setting their own standards on pesticide safety warnings. This cannot be regarded as “ethical and responsible” behaviour. This is simply eroding fundamental democratic rights.
Then on the science: Bayer does not and should not own science! US Court documents show that Bayer and Monsanto have long and aggressively fought the science on glyphosate and glyphosate- based herbicides such as Roundup. In an open letter of April last year, Bayer called scientific studies brought forward in the litigations against Roundup “junk science”. This includes studies by scientists working independently of pesticide companies, which were reviewed by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and led it to classify glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen.
As recently as December 2023, a US National Institutes of Health study reported new evidence that glyphosate exposure is associated with oxidative stress in humans, which is known to lead to many diseases, including cancer. In response, an American coalition of farm workers, public health and environmental advocates filed a legal petition with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) demanding they immediately suspend authorization for glyphosate.
On this side of the Atlantic Bayer and Syngenta have faced EU political criticism for failing to share brain toxicity studies with EU authorities in the past — data they had disclosed to U.S. regulators. The European Commission and the EU’s food and chemical agencies have called this a clear breach of EU Law. Scientists Bas Bloem said it very clear and I quote: “Why should we assume these companies are the best stewards of public health? As They’re making billions off these chemicals.”
Bayer indeed remains the global top seller of glyphosate — achieving an estimated €2.6 billion in glyphosate-related sales in 2024. You should shift gear and stop telling the fairy tale that the world needs glyphosate to produce enough food. Firstly there are many alternatives available – of course not for the RoundUp Ready patented GMO seeds for commodity crops like soy and maiz ; But for producing healthy nutritious food there is no need of a constant shower of a cocktail of pesticides. On the contrary: thousands of scientists have stated when Bayer and others were campaigning against EU Green Deal to reduce pesticide use, under the EU Green Deal, that the over-consumption of pesticides puts in danger future food production , due to biodiversity loss and soil health degradation.Simply put: Bayer’s miscalculation of its 53 billion euro purchase of Monsanto in 2018 is coming at the expense of consumers, farmers, shareholders and now also democracy, with short term commercial interests blatantly overruling public health and environmental concerns. So I urge you to stop using your clear blackmailing and scaremongering strategy, by putting up agriculture communities and policy makers against societies and putting people’s health in danger.
In view of the above, we, the 100+ organisations, consumers, farmers, academics, human rights defenders, environmental activists -from the US, Europe, and beyond, urge you to support the following demands to Bayer:
• Cease promoting and pushing Bayers’ legal immunity bills in the US
• Refrain from any further lobbying efforts that are damaging to the public interest
• Stop undermining scientific integrity by attacking independent science and instead, respect the Precautionary Principle as enshrined in EU Law.
Finally I would like to call on the shareholders not to approve the actions of the Board of Management and Supervisory Board and instead to vote in favor of the counter-motions of the Coordination against BAYER Dangers!‘
‚Thank you for your attention!‘
