Report: Pesticides may be driving Midwestern cancer crisis

Map by Ben Felder, IM, sources from Cancer: National Cancer Institute and the CDC, Pesticides: Pesticide National Synthesis Project, from the U.S. Geological Survey

As cancer diagnosis rates among Midwesterners continue to be higher than the national average, a "growing body of research indicates that pesticides are partly to blame," reports Ben Felder of Investigate Midwest. Pesticide use helped U.S. agriculture become an international commodity powerhouse, but that success may be coming at the expense of Midwestern communities.

Because more than half of U.S. cropland is in the Midwest, Midwesterners who don't live in a major metro area are likely to live near a farm that uses pesticides. Felder explains, "Sprayed from airplanes, drones, tractors and handheld devices, these chemicals can drift through the air or run off into nearby rivers and streams."

"Most of the 500 counties with the highest pesticide use per square mile are located in the Midwest," Felder reports. "Sixty percent of those counties also had cancer rates higher than the national average of 460 cases per 100,000 people, according to an analysis of data from both the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Cancer Institute."

Lisa Lawler from Hardin County, Iowa, believes that pesticides are the primary driver of cancer diagnoses in her community, including her mother's and her own. Felder writes, "The county is home to around 800 farms, has a pesticide use rate more than four times the national average and a cancer rate among the highest in the state."

Lawler had extensive testing completed to see if her cancer was hereditary. She told Felder, "The genetic test they ran for me was one that covered 81 genes that are typically related to breast cancer. . . .They told me my cancer is likely not genetic, but likely environmental, based on these 81 genes."

Pesticide manufacturers have continued to reject claims that pesticides have any part in regional cancer diagnosis trends. "But scientific research linking pesticides with certain types of cancers has been growing," Felder writes. A 2024 study published in Frontiers in Cancer Control and Society linked "pesticides to prostate, lung, pancreas and colon cancers. Pesticides have also been associated with lymphoma and Parkinson’s disease."