* Kansas bill aims to shield pesticide makers from some

cancer lawsuits

* Agriculture company Bayer faces losses from litigation

* Trump's executive order on glyphosate pesticides sparks

backlash from MAHA coalition

(Recasts headline and first paragraph.)

By Renee Hickman

CHICAGO, March 10 (Reuters) - Kansas lawmakers were set

to vote on a bill this week backed by Bayer that

would prevent people from suing pesticide manufacturers for not

warning them that their products could cause cancer or other

illnesses, as the German company readies a potential $7

billion-plus settlement for thousands of lawsuits over the

weedkiller Roundup.

The Kansas legislation is one of about a dozen Bayer-supported

bills introduced in state legislatures. It comes just weeks

after the company announced a proposed $7.25 billion settlement

that would resolve most of approximately 65,000 outstanding

lawsuits related to Roundup.

Bayer acquired Roundup as part of its $63 billion purchase of

agrochemical company Monsanto in ​2018, and with it an avalanche

of litigation from people who say the product caused them to

develop cancer. The company is supporting state and federal

legislative efforts to try to head off further Roundup-related

litigation, a company spokesperson said.

So far Bayer has had mixed success. Two bills have passed in

North Dakota and Georgia; the outlook for the Kansas bill is

uncertain.

Opponents of the Kansas bill distrust the U.S. Environmental

Protection Agency's assessment that glyphosate pesticides such

as Bayer's Roundup product are not likely to cause cancer, while

proponents fear that the widely used pesticide will be made more

expensive or pulled from the market, negatively affecting many

businesses in the heavily agricultural state.

"I'll wake up and I'll have over 400 emails and half of them

are saying yes, half of them are saying no," said Democratic

state senator Silas Miller, who sits on the agriculture

committee. He had not decided how to vote when he spoke to

Reuters.

Kenny Titus, a Republican senator on the committee, said he

was also inundated with emails both for and against the bill,

but planned to oppose it.

In an earnings call on March 4, the company reported a

fourth-quarter net loss of about 3.76 billion euros ($4.4

billion), attributed in part to the cost of litigation. Bayer is

also the defendant in a case before the Supreme Court, which is

set to hear arguments in April on whether the company had a duty

to warn customers that glyphosate could cause cancer.

In Washington, the House Agriculture Committee on Thursday

morning advanced a draft farm bill also supported by Bayer

requiring uniform pesticide labels nationwide. If passed, it

would bar local governments from requiring chemical companies to

put health warnings on the labels of pesticide products that

differ from language used by the EPA.

In February, U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive

order to encourage more domestic production of glyphosate-based

herbicides like Roundup.

MAHA BLOWBACK

The move has generated blowback from the so-called MAHA

coalition, many of whom supported Trump in the 2024 election,

and whose advocates are now in the administration - including

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

"Just as the large MAHA base begins to consider what to do at

midterms, the President issued an Executive Order to expand

domestic glyphosate production. The very same carcinogenic

pesticide that MAHA cares about most," MAHA-affiliated pesticide

activist Kelly Ryerson wrote on social media after the order was

announced.

Titus, who said many of his goals overlap with the MAHA

movement, said that for his Republican colleagues, the split on

pesticides among conservatives had put them in "an interesting

position."

A Missouri state court judge last week preliminarily approved

Bayer's proposed $7.25 billion settlement of a nationwide

class-action lawsuit brought by people who say Roundup caused

them to contract non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The judge said he will

hear objections from people affected before deciding in July

whether to grant final approval.

(1 euro = $1.17)