* "Make America Healthy Again" activists hold rally

* Speakers criticize Trump administration backing for

Bayer

* Court hears arguments as Bayer seeks to thwart suits

* Plaintiffs have sued over alleged weedkiller cancer

risk

By Leah Douglas

WASHINGTON, April 27 (Reuters) - "Make America Healthy

Again" activists rallied at the U.S. Supreme Court building on

Monday against Bayer as the justices heard arguments

in the German company's effort to end thousands of lawsuits that

allege its weedkiller Roundup causes cancer.

A couple of hundred MAHA supporters cheered and chanted on

the sidewalk outside the neoclassical white marble edifice

during a rally called "The People vs. Poison," waving signs with

slogans such as "No Immunity for Poison" and "How Much Cancer is

Acceptable?"

The name MAHA is a modification of President Donald Trump's

"Make America Great Again" slogan. But speakers at the rally

criticized the Trump administration's support for Bayer in this

case as well as the use of pesticides in agriculture.

"You cannot make America healthy again and protect the

corporations that are poisoning us," Vani Hari, a MAHA activist

and author who spoke at the rally, told Reuters.

Kelly Ryerson, co-executive director of the advocacy group

American Regeneration and another of the speakers, told Reuters

the Trump administration needs to change its approach to

pesticides to secure MAHA votes in the November congressional

elections.

Trump's fellow Republicans hope to maintain their slim

majorities in the House of Representatives and Senate in the

midterms.

"MAHA came to vote, many people came to vote for MAHA,

because of pesticides, because of the promise that was made that

we were going to address the effect of pesticides on the human

body," Ryerson said.

The MAHA movement backs Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy

Jr., a Trump appointee, and has aligned with some environmental

groups and lawmakers.

Among the speakers at the rally were various MAHA leaders,

members of environmental groups like Friends of the Earth and

the Center for Biological Diversity, and lawmakers including

Democratic Representative Chellie Pingree of Maine and

Democratic Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey.

Bayer has appealed a jury verdict in Missouri state court

awarding $1.25 million to a man named John Durnell who ‌said he

was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma after years of exposure

to glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup.

The company is facing tens of thousands of similar lawsuits

in both federal ​and state courts across the country. Glyphosate

is among the most commonly used weedkillers.

'FARMERS HAVE OTHER OPTIONS'

The Supreme Court appeared divided in the case, with a

ruling expected by the end of June.

Paul Clement, the lawyer representing Bayer, argued that a

ruling against the company "would open the door for crippling

⁠liability and undermine the interests of farmers who depend on

federally registered pesticides for their livelihood."

While the biggest U.S. farmer lobby group filed a brief

supporting Bayer in the case, some small farmer organizations

have said agriculture does not need to be dependent on

glyphosate.

"Bayer has come out, they've made major threats to take away

glyphosate, and say that our food system will collapse without

them. That's not true. Farmers have other options," Angela

Huffman, co-founder, president and CEO of Farm Action, told

Reuters at the rally.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted this month indicated that most

Americans are concerned about pesticide use in food crops and

oppose protecting companies from ​lawsuits when they sell

cancer-causing products, even if the company warns about the

risk.