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‘Cancer Is Just Everywhere’: Could Farming Be Behind Iowa’s Unfolding Health Crisis?
Six months ago, Alex Hammer was diagnosed with colon cancer at the age of 37. Dianne Chambers endured surgery, chemotherapy and dozens of rounds of radiation to fight aggressive breast cancer, and Janan Haugen spends most days helping care for her 16-year-old grandson, who is still being treated for brain cancer he developed at the age of 7.
The three were among a group of about two dozen people who came together last week in a small town in central Iowa to share their experiences of cancer. They are part of a new research project investigating potential environmental causes for what the American Cancer Society’s advocacy arm calls a cancer “crisis.” For the last few years, Iowa has had the second-highest rate of cancer in the nation, and is only one of two U.S. states where cancer is increasing.
“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.”
E.P.A. Plans to Reconsider a Ban on Cancer-Causing Asbestos
The Trump administration’s move sets back a decades-long effort to end the use of the material, which is widely banned in other countries. During the California wildfires this year, asbestos in older homes was a risk to firefighters and cleanup crews. The Trump administration plans to reconsider a ban on the last type of asbestos still used in the U.S., according to a court filing on Monday.
The move, which could halt enforcement of the ban for several years during the reconsideration, is a major blow to a decades-long battle by health advocates to prohibit the carcinogenic mineral in all its forms.
Known as “white” asbestos, chrysotile asbestos is banned in more than 50 countries for its link to lung cancer and mesothelioma, a cancer that forms in the lining of internal organs. White asbestos, however, has been imported for use in the United States for roofing materials, textiles and cement as well as gaskets, clutches, brake pads and other automotive parts. It is also used in chlorine manufacturing.
Highly Microplastic-Polluted US Coastal Waters Linked to Serious Health Risks, Study Finds
Living near heavily microplastic-polluted waters along the U.S. coastline may significantly raise the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, stroke and coronary artery disease, a condition in which plaque blocks the blood vessels feeding the heart, a new study found.
“This is one of the first large-scale studies to suggest that living near waters heavily polluted with microplastics may be linked to chronic health conditions,” said senior author Dr. Sarju Ganatra, medical director of sustainability and vice chair of research in the department of medicine at Lahey Hospital & Medical Center in Burlington, Massachusetts.
“While this study measured pollution in ocean water, pollution isn’t limited to the sea. Microplastics are everywhere: in drinking water, in the food we eat, especially seafood, and even in the air we breathe,” Ganatra said in a statement.
The study, however, makes sweeping associations between ocean data spanning 200 nautical miles, overlooks many variables and cannot establish causation to individual health outcomes, said Kimberly Wise White, vice president of regulatory and scientific affairs at the American Chemistry Council, an industry association.
How Does Air Pollution Affect Mental Health? New Study Aimed to Find Out
What happens to your mental and physical health when you move to an area with worse air pollution? That’s the subject of a fascinating new U.K.-based study. Prof Rosie McEachan, the director of NHS Born in Bradford, asked: “Do already unhealthy communities, who are often poorer members of our society, end up in unhealthier environments because no one else wants to live there; or is it the places themselves that are making people ill?”
The researchers used information from the Connected Bradford database. This contains the health records of more than 800,000 people who have lived in Bradford, West Yorkshire, since 1970 that can be studied in an anonymised way. Specifically, the researchers looked at 14,800 people who relocated within the city during early 2021.
With increasing evidence that air pollution affects mental health, the researchers focused on prescriptions for drugs for common mental health problems including depression and anxiety. Before moving, 2,100 people were taking these drugs. The researchers then checked for prescriptions a year later.
Iowa’s Clean Water Advocates Are Reclaiming the Past to Protect the Future
How can you create nostalgia for a world some have never seen? In Iowa, a group of non-profits has come together to do just this. The 48 Lakes Initiative encourages volunteers to tell stories of their memories with 48 of Iowa’s lakes — recalling a time when these crucial waterways were the center of social life and collective memory.
Today, lakes in many parts of the state are now too polluted for safe use. Kim Hagemann moved to Iowa in the late 1980s, and even then, she was shocked by the extent of the pollution in waterways.
“Right away it became pretty depressing. Park after park was like a ghost town,” she tells Sentient. “We kind of quit going to the county parks and the state parks, because it was just so depressing. It was really obvious that recreating probably wasn’t a pleasant thing to do in the water.”
New York City Has a Trash Problem. A Packaging Reduction Bill Could Help
New York City knows it has a waste management problem. The average city household generated 1,899 pounds of trash in 2023. Only around 17% of the city’s curbside waste is recycled, despite efforts to change, such as the city’s 2020 plastic bag ban. Much of the city’s solid garbage and waste, if it is not incinerated, ends up in large landfills upstate, in neighboring states including Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and farther south in Virginia.
A bill to winnow the waste, the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act (PRRIA), has been debated throughout the state’s legislative session this spring. The Senate approved the measure; it is still in play in the Assembly’s Ways and Means Committee with only a few days left. The proposal would reduce the amount of non-recyclable packaging in the city by 30% over the next 12 years and make packaging producers contribute more to recycling efforts and disposal. And it faces tough opposition.
Businesses as well as companies with links to the petroleum and chemical industry have fought PRRIA, complaining about its “unworkable mandates,” scope and potential cost. The state Business Council issued a statement, signed by nearly 100 businesses and trade organizations, including from the plastics industry, that this year’s bill was little different from earlier failed proposals and did “nothing to address business’ key concerns.”
