‘Extinction-Level’: MAHA Warns Pesticide Immunity Provision Could Mirror Anger-Inducing Bill From 1980s

Critics are sounding the alarm over a provision in a House appropriations bill they say could shield pesticide manufacturers from legal liability — drawing comparisons to the 1986 law that granted similar protections to vaccine makers.

The rule, tucked into Section 453 of the House’s Fiscal Year 2026 Interior and Environment Appropriations Act, has sparked backlash from supporters of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement. They argue it could mirror the fallout of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, which created a no-fault system protecting vaccine producers from injury lawsuits. (RELATED: Idea Proposed By RFK Has Some In MAHA Scratching Their Heads)

“If you don’t like what happened with vaccine indemnification, you’re really not gonna like what happens with pesticide and herbicide indemnification,” Dr. Robert Malone, a prominent and longtime critic of COVID-19 vaccine mandates, said in a July 24 video.

Dr. Robert Malone joined the call with a blunt warning.

If the 1986 vaccine immunity deal made you angry, this pesticide bill should enrage you.

“What we’re encountering here is something that is right at the heart of the MAHA movement, even more than the vaccine agenda.”… pic.twitter.com/w287oJBNMb

— MAHA Action (@MAHAAction) July 24, 2025

“If you aren’t mad now, you damn well should be,” Malone, who currently sits on the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP), added.

Kennedy himself acknowledged the follies of the 1986 Vaccine Act in an X post.

“The 1986 Vaccine Act gave vaccine makers immunity against lawsuits by children who suffer vaccine injuries,” he tweeted Wednesday in a scathing criticism of the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), a program created by Congress in conjunction with the Vaccine Act.

The 1986 Vaccine Act gave vaccine makers immunity against lawsuits by children who suffer vaccine injuries. The statute, and numerous subsequent court decisions, recognized that vaccines, like all medicines, are, in the words of the American Academy of Pediatrics case,…

— Secretary Kennedy (@SecKennedy) July 28, 2025

However, despite the popular uproar, Kennedy Jr. has yet to publicly comment on Section 453.

The lack of coverage from MAHA reformers within the government has invoked sharp criticism.

“You get that Section 453 of the new Appropriations Bill — that would shield pesticide manufacturers from liability in U.S. courts — will undo ALL of the good from the MAHA healthy food campaign, right? Yet MAHA insiders haven’t said a word of protest. Makes you wonder,” Toby Rogers, Ph.D. and fellow at Brownstone Institute for Social and Economic Research, tweeted Wednesday.

You get that Section 453 of the new Appropriations Bill — that would shield pesticide manufacturers from liability in U.S. courts — will undo ALL of the good from the MAHA healthy food campaign, right? Yet MAHA insiders haven’t said a word of protest. Makes you wonder. 🤔

— Toby Rogers (@uTobian) July 30, 2025

Rogers did not lay the entirety of the blame at Kennedy Jr.’s feet, however.

“Secretary Kennedy understands that we need systemic change in order to improve the health of all Americans. We need to clean up our industrial food system to get rid of toxic chemicals and heal the soil, he told the Daily Caller.

“Unfortunately, in this administration, Secretary Kennedy has been siloed into working on just a few parts of the health system. That’s not going to work. The entire system is poisoning us and Section 453 will wipe out all of the good that MAHA has done in connection with food thus far,” Rogers also told the Caller.

He spoke of 453 in biblical terms.

“Section 453 + the 1986 Act are an extinction level event for the U.S. Together they represent the largest self-inflicted mass poisoning in human history. They reveal a level of depravity in our political system straight out of the Book of Revelations,” Rogers also tweeted.

Section 453, critics claim, would grant immunity to pesticide manufacturers from “failure to warn” lawsuits that consumers could file if chemicals within the pesticides and herbicides sicken them.

The text of the stipulation reads as follows:

“None of the funds made available by this or any other Act may be used to issue or adopt any guidance or any policy, take any regulatory action, or approve any labeling or change to such labeling that is inconsistent with or in any respect different from the conclusion of (a) a human health assessment performed pursuant to the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act … or (b) a carcinogenicity classification for a pesticide.”

While a causal observer may view the bill text as mundane, Rogers argued it was that ambiguity precisely that made the language so dangerous.

“The bill was clearly written by lobbyists for the pesticide and chemical industries. They knew exactly how to word the rider to gut existing safety laws while hiding their true intentions. Once again Congress is working on behalf of toxic industries and against the interests of the American people,” he told the Caller.

Republican Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson, who sits on the House Appropriations Committee as well as its environmental subcommittee, does not appear to believe Section 453 is as damning as the provision’s detractors.

“The provision does not address the substance of any health assessments and does not change current authority that States have to regulate the use and sale of pesticides within their own State,” a spokesperson for Simpson’s office told the Caller.

“The health and safety of Americans is a priority throughout our FY26 process,” the spokesperson added.