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The University of Iowa announced Wednesday the launch of a statewide research initiative aimed at understanding how environmental exposures cause a variety of serious health problems experienced by people around the state.
The university announced that with initial funding of $6 million and a goal of $10 million, it will collect and analyze data to identify factors contributing to Iowa’s rising cancer rates, as well as issues related to maternal and newborn health, neurodevelopment, and autism-related outcomes.
David Kwiatney, director of the university’s Center for Environmental Pollution and Health Effects (CHEEC), which is leading the effort, said the research will include monitoring and data collection of air and water pollutants, installing infrastructure to measure pollutants in human tissue and body fluids, and using existing storage sites for blood, urine and breast milk collected from people in the state.
“There’s a lot of work to do,” Kwiatney said. “We are optimistic that we will gain valuable information. We are in a data-limited environment.”
The effort, named the Iowa Integrated Network for Science, Information and Geospatial Health Tracking (INSIGHT), will be supported by an advisory board of nationally recognized experts, Kwiatney said.
Dr. Martin St. Clair, a researcher at the University of Iowa, samples drainage tiles in northwest Iowa for chemical contaminants such as pesticides and PFAS.
“Human health crisis”
The move comes amid growing concerns about rising cancer rates in the state and concerns that the state’s reliance on large-scale agriculture may be at the root of the health crisis.
According to the National Institutes of Health, Iowa has the second-highest cancer rate in the nation and is just one of three states where cancer is on the rise. For many types of cancer, the state’s numbers are well below the national average. The state’s overall cancer rate is 498 per 100,000 people, which is 10% higher than the national cancer rate.
Many residents and health and environmental activists point to heavy use of pesticides and extensive animal farming as contributing factors to disease rates, but agricultural industry groups and their political allies deny the link. The state has approximately 87,000 farms and ranks first in corn production as well as pork and egg production, and is among the top five states in soybean cultivation and cattle raising.
Nitrate pollution from these farms has raised serious pollution concerns for major waterways around the state, including the rivers that provide drinking water to the state capital, Des Moines. Last week, the city’s water utility again asked residents to reduce their water use because nitrate levels in the drinking water supply are so high that it is difficult to treat and remove the contaminants to meet demand.
Initial funding of $5 million will come from Iowa residents Sharon and Kyle Kraus, and an additional $1 million from the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust.
“We’re really at a tipping point in Iowa right now,” said Sharon Krause, a lifelong Iowan who owns several farms and serves as general counsel for a family business that owns 6,000 acres of farmland in the state. “We are facing a human health crisis. Our water quality is at great risk. There is a trajectory here that we need to reverse.”
“Right now, Iowa is at a tipping point. We are facing a human health crisis.” – Sharon Krauss, Research Funder, Iowa Farmer
“No agenda”
The university is hiring new scientists and researchers, with work expected to begin on July 1. Kwiatny said the team plans to develop a website where they can share the data they are developing, particularly on water extraction, with the public.
“There is a focus on publishing all the data we get on our website and dashboards so that Iowans can see what we are actually finding when we generate the data,” he said. “The next step is to make sure we’re really having a rational discussion about what impact these findings will have. But we start by making sure we understand these vulnerabilities and environmental risks and identifying parts of the state that have them more acutely.”
Kwiatney said there was “no agenda” behind the research project.
“It’s important to have access to science, knowledge, information and evidence,” he says. “You want that so you can make informed decisions.”
The INSIGHT project will be added to other recent research reports and studies. In March, the Iowa Environmental Council (IEC) and the Harkin Institute, a public policy research institute at Drake University, released a report that identified exposure to four environmental risk factors as major contributors to cancer in the state: pesticides, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), nitrates, and radon.
And last year, a group of more than a dozen scientists commissioned a 227-page water assessment report commissioned by Polk County, Iowa, which found that agricultural operations are a major contributor to the state’s water pollution problems. The report determined that much, but not all, of the pollution is related to agricultural practices, such as the use of pesticides and waste runoff from large-scale animal husbandry.
Colin Anderson, co-director of the University of Vermont’s Agroecology Institute, said research efforts like the one taking place in Iowa are “essential to phasing out pesticides and petrochemicals from agriculture and working toward a more sustainable and equitable food system.”
He said such research needs to be accompanied by policy changes.
“We need to not only do the science, but also engage in political action to hold polluters accountable and limit further use of these chemicals,” Anderson said. “More science and data, such as what could be gleaned from projects like this one in Iowa, will help drive that forward.”
Mikalyn Mankell, a senior organizer with the Food and Water Watch advocacy group, said more research is needed, but we shouldn’t wait for policymakers and others to take action.
“Iowa’s public health crisis is a harbinger of things to come if lawmakers continue to allow factory farms and industrial agriculture to pollute our water and environment with impunity,” Mankell said. “Across the country, especially in the upper Midwest Corn Belt, communities are demanding policies that prioritize public health over big farms. With more factory farms and pesticides than any other state, and the fastest-growing cancer rates in the nation, Iowa is a case study in this national crisis and an opportunity for change.”
Featured image from the University of Iowa.
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Carrie Gillum is editor-in-chief of The New Lede and a veteran investigative journalist with more than 30 years of experience covering U.S. news, including 17 years (1998-2015) as a senior correspondent for Reuters International. She is the author of Whitewashing: A Story of Herbicides, Cancer, and the Corruption of Science, which exposed the agricultural corruption of the Monsanto corporation. The book won the coveted Rachel Carson Book Award from the Society of Environmental Journalists in 2018. Her second book, the narrative law thriller The Monsanto Documents, was released on March 2, 2021.
She also contributed chapters to a textbook on environmental journalism and a book on pesticide use in Africa.
Mr. Gillum testified about his research as an invited expert before the European Parliament in 2017 and was a featured speaker at the World Democracy Forum in Strasbourg, France in 2019. He has also been a keynote speaker and panel speaker at events and universities in North America, Australia, the Netherlands, Brussels, and France.
Gillam is a regular contributor to the Guardian. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, Huffington Post, Time, and other outlets.
In 2022, Gillum helped launch The New Lede as a journalism initiative of the Environmental Working Group.
Gillum is a member of the Association of Environmental Journalists.
