‘Cancer is just everywhere’: could farming be behind Iowa’s unfolding health crisis?

“People in rural communities are getting sick. Cancer is just everywhere,” said Kerri Johannsen, senior director of policy at the Iowa Environmental Council, a non-profit focused on improving the environment that is helping to lead the project. “Every person I talk to knows somebody that has [recently] had a cancer diagnosis,” she said. “It’s just a constant drumbeat. It’s scary.”

Kentucky, the only state with a higher cancer incidence than Iowa, historically has also ranked first in adult smoking, which is considered to play a major role in the state’s high cancer rates.

In Iowa, the cause has been less clear. Last year, a state report cited alcohol consumption as a key factor. Higher-than-average levels of radon, a naturally occurring, colorless gas known to cause cancer, is also a concern.

But many residents blame the insecticides, herbicides and other pesticides widely used on farms as well as the state’s persistent problem with high levels of hazardous nitrates that wash off farm fields into the state’s water supply.

As a key US farm state, Iowa has long been known for the leafy green stalks of corn that stretch seemingly endlessly across the horizon. With nearly 87,000 farms, the state ranks first not only for corn production but also for pork and egg production, and is within the top five states for growing soybeans and raising cattle.

Of Iowa’s 35.7m acres of total land, roughly 31m is devoted to farming.

Many of the pesticides routinely used are linked to a range of diseases, including the popular herbicide glyphosate, which is classified as a probable human carcinogen by cancer experts at the World Health Organization. Nitrates are also tied to cancer, particularly when consumed in drinking water or other dietary sources.

Agricultural fertilizers and manure from large-scale livestock operations are key sources for nitrates, which are known to contaminate surface water and groundwater.

In addition to looking at pesticides and nitrates, the research will also look at cancer links to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAs).

Earlier this year, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) warned of elevated cancer risks related to such farm fertilizer contaminated with PFAs.

The work will also include a deeper look at the state’s high levels of radon as a key cancer cause, said Elise Pohl, former community health consultant for the Iowa department of health who is the lead researcher for the project. Radon, a leading cause of lung cancer, is particularly high across Iowa, with approximately 50% of homes facing radon levels above federal regulatory action levels.

“We really want to find out why these cancers are increasing,” Pohl said. “We’re homing in on the agriculture side of things.”

MAGA, Iowa!

Keep voting for Trump.

He'll be sure to abolish the EPA, which creates federal guidelines for protecting the environment and making sure that corporations and businesses don't pollute the environment.

But that's not important, right? Dumbasses.

[quote]He'll be sure to abolish the EPA, which creates federal guidelines for protecting the environment and making sure that corporations and businesses don't pollute the environment.

He doesn't need to abolish the EPA, he's already stocked it with toadies that will rubber-stamp his every insane thought.

We are all going to die.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s all the conventional, high-chem farming.

I grew up swimming in a creek that was run off of about 100 farms. I shudder to think of what I was exposed to

Of course it is, it’s all of the pesticides, we all know this right? Is this really a question? I mean other than the people who believe ridiculous garbage corporations try to spin. They don’t even really try to spin it.

It sounds just like those communities in California that were being polluted by PG&E waste, causing horrible cases of cancer in rural areas.

Just like in the movie "Erin Brockovich."

Someone needs to look into it, and SUE the fuck out of the businesses doing the polluting.

These Bible thumping Iowans should remember

Galatians 6:7-8:

You reap what you sow

After years of poisoning the ground, that is what is happening to them.

R8 We need our own Erin Brokovich but she’ll probably be twice the size and covered in tattoos.

There are so many environmental causes of cancer, and there are so many products on the market that cause cancer that it is almost as if no one care about human beings. But, having said that the other thing that has happened is t hat we now have the technology to identify cancers earlier. And early stage cancers stand the best chance of responding to treatment. Also treatments are cheaper. My mother's 3 dimensional mammogram found cancer cells. Stage one. They gave her a lumpectomy, no radiation, no chemo, she just takes a pill once a day. They check her out every 6 months. She's doing great! My mother's cancer was not detectable through self examination. There was no lump. Instead the cancer cells were spread out like a rash, feeding off hormones. I will add that Kamala Harris's mother was one of the scientists on the team that discovered cancer cells feeding off hormones and determined that hormone blockers effectively starved the cells and stopped the growth.

Are these cancer rates adjusted for age? Most young people get the hell out of Iowa.

Thank goodness Our Jean isn’t here to see the shameful downfall of her home state.

"Someone needs to look into this...."

Don't hold your breath for Trump, his worthless as tits on a bull cabinet, or the gutless, spineless Republicsn party, especially the Iowan congressional delegation, to do one god damned thing about this.

Corporate farming is big business.

Big business does not admit liability to anything if it can possibly avoid it.

Republican politicians love big business because of the political donations they make.

Wake up and smell the coffee, OP.

[quote]Republican politicians love big business because of the political donations they make.

And Democratic politicians don't?

Thanks Grassley.

Dianne Chambers? Great waitress in Boston!

Iowa is full of isolationist Republicans who don,'t want damn foreigners and outsiders meddling in their affairs or telling them what to do.

So I say fuck these people and let them stew in their own juices.

Meh. It’s Iowa.

I have a longstanding relationship with a ranching and farming family from Alberta I know because the father died of cancer. Since then his widow, their son and daughter, and his sister have died of cancer, too. It’s incredibly common in their rural town 100 miles from Calgary. You know it’s pesticides, but their use was/is the business model for big operations.

[quote] I grew up swimming in a creek that was run off of about 100 farms. I shudder to think of what I was exposed to

Even the old fashioned unadulterated shit fertilizer runoff would be a risk.

[quote] I grew up swimming in a creek that was run off of about 100 farms. I shudder to think of what I was exposed to

It's fine!

Everything is fine!

C'mon in, the water's fine!

Can’t imagine it being anything but the chemicals in farming.

Weed killer Round-Up

R11, do you know if drinking soy milk is bad ? (Breast cancer)

I've been wary of pesticides ever since I read "Silent Spring" in high school. I suspect pesticide use is a significant contributor to a lot of health problems in farming communities. The fact that we're no doubt consuming remnants of it from supermarket produce is off-putting.