Why Cancer, Not Affordability, May Be the Biggest Issue in Iowa’s Midterms
Mother Jones · L · trust 41/100
Agricultural operations are a possible culprit in the state's high rates of several cancers. Igor Stevanovic/AP
This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
In Iowa, one of the key battleground states in November’s midterm elections , just about every political candidate agrees on one thing: Something must be done about the state’s rising rates of cancer.
The midwestern state has the second-highest rate of cancer nationwide and, together with Utah and West Virginia , is one of only three states where the incidence of the disease is rising, according to cancer rate monitoring from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities. Promises to address the issue are now top of mind for candidates ahead of the 3 November elections, in which Iowa may play an important role in deciding control of Congress for the final two years of Donald Trump’s term.
“The road I live on, I think there’s only one family that has not dealt with some kind of cancer,.”
Republicans hoping to preserve their party’s dominance of the state and Democrats who believe conditions are right for them to win key races have pledged to make fighting the disease a priority. Where they differ is in their views over the degree to which the state’s powerhouse farm economy has contributed to making Iowans sick, and what to do about it.
“I think state leadership and industrial agriculture are very hesitant to have those conversations, but I think the Iowa public is calling and demanding action and conversation and answers in a way that both parties are needing to respond, and [that’s] why it has become the campaign issue of this upcoming election,” said Sarah Green, executive director of the Iowa Environmental Council, a non-partisan group whose research into the disease’s prevalence has helped fuel public awareness of the crisis. Iowa’s cancer rates followed national trends until 2012, when they began climbing upwards for reasons that Green said remain unclear. Cancer includes a broad group of diseases, and many aspects of life, from stress to food to environment, can modify someone’s risk. What’s plain is the importance to voters – one survey has cancer ranked as the top issue facing the state, eclipsing even the cost of living.
In the race for the state’s open US Senate seat, Democrat Josh Turek whose spina bifida he attributes to his father’s exposure to Agent Orange during the Vietnam war, has brought up his sister’s struggle with breast cancer, while his opponent, the Republican congresswoman Ashley Hinson, has emphasized her attempts to reform health policy in Washington. Candidates of both parties vying for the state’s four Republican-held House districts have battled over who would be better suited to channel federal resources to the state’s needs. In the race to replace the incumbent governor, Kim Reynolds, Zach Lahn won an upset victory in the Republican primary with the support of a PAC connected to the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, and both he and his Democratic opponent, Rob Sand, have unveiled lengthy plans to curb rates of the disease. “The road I live on, I think there’s only one family that has not dealt with some kind of cancer,” said Seth Watkins, a longtime farmer in southwest Iowa who sees the emphasis on fighting the disease—and potentially changing the state’s approach to agriculture—as long overdue.
“We have a farm policy that has resulted in less soil, less biodiversity in wild species, more cancer, fewer farmers and fewer opportunities. I mean, at some point, wouldn’t people just look at that data and say, you know, maybe we should do something different?”
Iowa is the top producer of corn and pork in the US and one of the largest growers of soy, and agriculture generates a third of the state’s economic output and a fifth of its jobs.
But that immense productivity comes at a cost: Iowa’s farmers use more fertilizer than those of any other state, and it also leads in the number of concentrated animal feeding operations, which are part of the meat processing supply chain and generate runoff.
Green pointed out that Iowa also had relatively few regulations intended to keep pesticides and farm runoff, which can be heavy with cancer-linked nitrates, away from people and out of water supplies.
“Too many politicians from Washington, DC, to Des Moines have had their heads stuck in the sand while Big Ag and Big Pharma printed money.”
In 2022, Iowa’s overall rate of cancer was approximately 506 cases per 100,000 people, higher than the national average of 442 per 100,000 people, according to National Institutes of Health data. It also has elevated rates of non-Hodgkin lymphoma and acute myeloid leukemia, two cancers that some studies have found may be linked to glyphosate , the herbicide marketed as Roundup that is the most used in the state.
Agriculture’s impact on Iowans has recently become pronounced, even for people that have nothing to do with farming.
Some Iowa waterways are among the most polluted by nitrates in the US, and last year the water utility serving Des Moines, the state’s capital and largest city, announced its first-ever lawn watering ban because levels of the compounds in the rivers from which it draws its water supply had hit near-record levels. The utility ordered water rationed again this summer.
When the Iowa Environmental Council last year dispatched researchers across the midwestern state to learn more about how cancer was affecting its residents, Green said talking about the link with agriculture was often regarded as a “taboo.”
“Iowans knew there were issues, but felt like they were not supported by their state and by elected officials in, one, hearing their stories, and then two, addressing and recognizing real challenges that Iowans are experiencing a health crisis,” said Green, whose group convened the 16 listening sessions together with the Iowa Farmers Union and…
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