The U.S. farm county with cancer rates 50% higher than the nation’s

Maureen Reeves Horsley, originally from a small Iowan farming county, says she can rarely look through local obituaries without seeing someone who has died of cancer.

In Palo Alto County, dozens of residents are being diagnosed with cancer and dying from it as their state becomes one of the few to see progress in fighting the disease reversed.

And while Ms Horsley remembers a time when the region’s crops were bountiful, the lakes were crystal clear and people drank water straight from their farms, residents now wonder if the land they lived on was poisoning them slowly.

Palo Alto County is home to about 8,800 residents and 840 farms, and its cancer rate is nearly 50 percent higher than the national average.

Ms. Horsley, a nurse, said she is one of many Iowans who speculate that the farms on which families depended for food and income were actually the source of their illnesses because of toxic pollutants and chemicals used in the agricultural industry.

She said: “As a nurse practitioner, I know five people with pancreatic cancer.

“I know 20 people here who have other cancers or who have died from cancer. Check out the obituaries in our newspaper. Everyone is aware of what is happening.

She added in an interview with The New Lede that she and her family drank water from their farm and that her sister was later diagnosed with breast cancer at age 27 and another was diagnosed with cancer of the uterus.

Unlike the majority of U.S. states, Iowa is one of a handful of states where cancer rates have increased over the past five years.

It has the second highest rate of diagnoses – about 480 per 100,000 people, according to the National Cancer Institute.

Palo Alto County has the highest cancer rates of any county in Iowa and the second highest of any county in the United States, at about 660 per 100,000 people, according to a U.S. News report.

This figure is higher than the national average of 442 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.

In 2024, approximately 21,000 Iowans are expected to be diagnosed with cancer, which for its population represents the second highest share of diagnoses in the country.

It is estimated that around 6,100 people will die.

The state has the fastest growing rate of new cancers and the second highest cancer rate in the nation for the second year in a row.

Two issues may be driving the state’s cancer surge: contamination of water, soil and air from chemicals used in the state’s booming agricultural industry and the growing alcohol problem in Iowa.

Ms. Horsley said, “We are very involved in agriculture in Iowa. High consumption of chemicals. Large applications of nutrients. What effect does this have on people? More research needs to be done on this.

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“In the past, farmers lived longer if they did not die from an accident on the farm. Now everyone gets tested and finds out they have prostate cancer, glioblastoma or lymph node cancer. We need to find out what’s going on.

In Davenport, Iowa, about 300 miles southeast of Ms. Horsley, David Dunn and his wife Sharon Kendall-Dunn have long worried about the effects of farming on their health.

The Dunns told The Lede that 10 years ago a mass was discovered in David’s abdomen and he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer previously linked to pesticides and nitrates from farms.

Although the couple doesn’t work or live on a farm, David’s doctor still said their environment could be a factor: “You live in Iowa,” the couple recounted telling the doctor.

And two years ago, Sharon was diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia, a cancer of the bone marrow.

Both Dunns grew up in Iowa and know friends and family members who have also been diagnosed with cancer, some of whom have died from the disease.

In the eastern Iowan farming town of Long Grove, Jim Green, 65, died in 2019 of glioblastoma, a brain cancer.

Before his death, his wife Chris Green told The Lede that he had worked for 39 years in an aluminum plant where he was likely exposed to cancer-causing chemicals.

And Chris said she knows of nine other people in her town who have died from the same brain cancer in recent years.

Linus Solberg also knows several people who have suffered from cancer.

The Palo Alto County farmer and supervisor told the Lede that his father developed prostate cancer, his mother died of ovarian cancer, and his wife and three of his neighbors died of various forms of the disease.

He said, “So that’s six there for three miles along that road.” I don’t know if it’s a pesticide or electric. We have all these windmills. I don’t know if it’s in the water. I have no idea.’

Dr. Nathan Goodyear, medical director of an integrative cancer center in Arizona, previously told DailyMail.com that alcohol and pesticides were two major contributors to an “inhospitable environment” that could increase cancer risk.

Agriculture in Iowa accounts for $17.3 billion of the state’s $247 billion gross domestic product, or about seven percent. It is the third most profitable industry in the state.

Palo Alto County farms generate about $800 million annually for Iowa, representing about 2 percent of the state’s agricultural sales. It has approximately 361,000 acres of agricultural land.

The state’s two main crops are corn and soybeans, which require large amounts of pesticides and fertilizers.

In Palo Alto County, hogs, grains, and beans are the primary agricultural products.

The state uses 237 million pounds of weed killer and 11.6 billion pounds of fertilizer annually, more than any other state. The level of fertilizer use accounts for 28 percent of the entire country each year.

And Iowa’s livestock and poultry industry produces more waste per year than any other state – 109 billion pounds.

Pesticides and nitrates – a byproduct of fertilizers, manure and oxygen – from animal feces regularly flow from farms into water sources. Exposure to these substances has been associated with an increased risk of brain, breast, bladder, liver, bile duct, and ovarian cancers, as well as non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Dr Goodyear told DailyMail.com that pesticides and agricultural chemicals disrupt hormones, increase inflammation, impair the immune system and reduce oxygen levels in cells and tissues.

Officials now also point to a single environmental cause for the increase: radioactive gas leaking from Earth thanks to geological changes during the last ice age.

Thousands of years ago, Iowa and other parts of the Midwest were covered by a massive glacier that began to erode the bedrock. Today, it is worn enough in specific areas that radon can seep into the ground and enter homes.

Radon, a naturally occurring radioactive gas released by weathered rocks, is the leading cause of lung cancer in nonsmokers, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The Iowa Department of Health and Human Services has warned that radon can seep through small holes made for wiring, pipes or cracks in a building’s foundation where it accumulates without be detected.

And when someone inhales high levels of the gas, it damages the lining of the lungs, which could lead to cancer. The EPA estimates that about 70 percent of Iowa homes are exposed to radon.

Determined to get answers to the mysterious cancer outbreak hitting his state, Mr. Solberg called on local health officials to do more investigation. While he knows Iowa universities have addressed the problem, he said not enough is being done to mitigate the risks.

Trying to step up their efforts, Iowa health officials said they are expanding screening programs for breast, lung, prostate and colon cancer.

They also advise residents on smoking and healthy eating, test drinking water supplies and test homes for radon.