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Bayer Sues Multiple COVID Vaccine Makers in Lawsuit Over mRNA Technology
Pharmaceutical giant Bayer has launched legal action against leading COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers Pfizer, BioNTech, and Moderna, alleging the misuse of its messenger RNA (mRNA) technology. Filed in a Delaware federal court, the lawsuits claim the companies copied technology developed by Bayer’s subsidiary, Monsanto, in the 1980s.
This pioneering work, originally designed to strengthen mRNA in crops for stability, was allegedly applied to stabilise the genetic material within the COVID-19 vaccines.
Bayer has also filed a similar lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson in a New Jersey federal court, arguing a DNA-based process used in its vaccine production infringes a Bayer patent. These actions contribute to a complex web of patent disputes surrounding the blockbuster COVID-19 jabs, including an existing lawsuit between Moderna and Pfizer.
Bayer, which was not involved in developing or selling COVID-19 vaccines, is seeking unspecified monetary damages, clarifying it is not aiming to halt manufacturing. The financial context is notable: Pfizer and BioNTech reported over $3.3 billion in revenue from global sales of their vaccine Comirnaty in 2024, while Moderna earned $3.2 billion from its Spikevax.
Their Homes Survived the Historic LA Area Wildfires, but a Year Later They Fear Living in Them
U.S. News & World Report reported:
“DANGER: Lead Work Area” reads a sign on a front door of an Altadena home. “May damage fertility or the unborn child. Causes damage to the central nervous system.”
Block after block there are reminders that contaminants still linger. House cleaners, hazardous waste workers and homeowners alike come and go wearing masks, respirators, gloves and hazmat suits as they wipe, vacuum and power-wash homes that weren’t burnt to ash.
It’s been a year of heartbreak and worry since the most destructive wildfires in the Los Angeles area’s history scorched neighborhoods and displaced tens of thousands of people. Two wind-whipped blazes that ignited on Jan. 7, 2025, killed at least 31 people and destroyed nearly 17,000 structures, including homes, schools, businesses and places of worship. Rebuilding will take years.
The disaster has brought another wave of trauma for people afraid of what still lurks inside their homes.
EPA to Boost Worker — Not Consumer — Protections for Phthalates
EPA’s decision to craft regulations for six chemicals used to make plastics targets workplace and environmental risks, skirting dangers to the general public. The agency on the final day of 2025 finalized its cumulative review that determined five phthalates — BBP, DBP, DCHP, DEHP and DIBP, all commonly used to make plastics, like polyvinyl chloride, more flexible — pose “unreasonable risks,” triggering the rulemaking process.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a post on X the announcement was a “massive MAHA win,” referring to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement, which has singled out phthalates as a family of chemicals potentially contributing to childhood chronic disease.
“MAHA activists were right, and the Trump EPA strongly agrees, that exposures in certain settings exceed safe levels and could cause endocrine disruption and reproductive health impacts,” Zeldin wrote.
Nearly Every Corn Seed Planted in Colorado Is Covered in Insecticide: Lawmakers May Restrict the Chemical
Colorado farmers plant tens of millions of corn seeds every year, nearly every one of them covered in a thin layer of insecticide. The neonicotinoids used in the coatings protect the seed from pests in the soil and, as the crop matures, the chemical is absorbed into the plant’s tissue, where it continues to paralyze and kill insects that chomp on the crop.
Farmers say the insecticide is necessary, but growing concerns about its impact on crucial pollinator species and the wider environment are prompting a push in Colorado for more regulation of the widely used class of chemicals. Environmental advocates plan to seek a bill in the state legislature in 2026 that would limit their use in hopes of protecting pollinators and water quality.
While a draft bill has not yet been made public, the environmental groups working on it said the legislation would ban the use of neonicotinoids without prior approval by inspectors overseen by the Colorado Department of Agriculture. “This is an existential threat to both our wildlife and our own health,” said Allison Johnson, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council who is working on the policy.
Increased Pesticide Use in Illinois Is Killing Native Oaks
While nearly the same amount of corn and soybean acres have been planted every year since the mid-1990s, the use of pesticides in Illinois has increased exponentially, according to USDA data. Synthetic pesticide use has been a dominant agricultural practice since the 1950s, but use escalated dramatically in the mid-1990s when Monsanto, now Bayer, first released its Roundup Ready soybean and corn seeds, which allow farmers to spray directly on their crops, killing weeds without harming their harvest.
Before the commercial release of the genetically engineered seeds, glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup, accounted for a fraction of a percent of the total herbicides used on corn in Illinois. But by 2010, just over a decade after the commercial launch of glyphosate-tolerant corn seeds, glyphosate use accounted for more than 28% of all herbicides used.
That’s because after only five years of commercial use, dozens of weeds had evolved widespread resistance to glyphosate, becoming what some call superweeds. In response, farmers used more of the herbicide or switched to other products, such as 2,4-D and dicamba.
Disease-Carrying Microplastics in the Air We Breathe
An average resident of an Indian city can inhale nearly three grams of plastics over their lifetime, almost the weight of a small plastic bottle, according to a new study that looked at an emerging airborne pollutant – inhalable microplastics (iMPs) – and their implications for human health.
Inhalable microplastics are a subset of airborne microplastics. While airborne microplastics are typically less than 5 mm in size, inhalable microplastics are 500 times smaller, at less than 10 microns in size, a size that can penetrate the nasal cavity and enter the lungs, says the study in the journal Environment International.
Typically, fine particles from dust, smoke, and fuel, are categorised either as PM2.5 or PM10, which are particles considered responsible for air pollution. But microplastics now make up as much as 5% of these particulate pollutants in India’s cities, says the study conducted by the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Kolkata in collaboration with the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Kalyani, the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai and Homi Bhabha National Institute, Mumbai.
