Bladder cancer is considered a quintessential environmental cancer—with data going back a hundred years, there is more evidence linking toxic chemical exposures with bladder cancer
risk than almost any other kind of cancer. Unfortunately, identification of carcinogens does
not preclude their ongoing use.
There are three dozen different industries that line the Illinois River Valley. In addition, farmers practice chemically intensive agriculture in this area. Drinking water wells contain
traces of both farm and industrial chemicals, including those with demonstrable links to
bladder cancer.
Pesticides were first created as weapons of war. DDT was used in World War II (WWII) in
response to a typhus epidemic among refugees in Italy and was later deployed to the Pacific
Theater to fight a malaria epidemic among U.S. troops. At the same time, 2,4D and 2,4,5T—
two phenoxy herbicides—were invented as chemical weapons of war with the intent to
destroy Japanese rice crops. Nitrate, originally used for explosives, was repurposed after the war and sold as fertilizer, ensuring a continuing product market for chemical companies.
Prior to WWII, all farming was organic—it was not dependent on chemicals to control pests.
The introduction of pesticides into agriculture resulted in many unexpected pest outbreaks
that had not occurred before—pesticides killed targeted pests but also killed many other
insects that served as natural predators. To manage this problem, farming moved into single
crop production—large-scale monocultures.
Methods of agriculture determine what foods are available to the public. With the
subsidization of corn and soy production, it can be argued that the public is exposed to more atrazine in drinking water, burdened with higher obesity rates, and imparted inexpensive red
meats associated with increased risk of colon cancer. Lifestyle is an important risk factor for cancer; diet is largely determined by the price of food and what is made available to
consumers in local supermarkets.
Atrazine is an intensely soluble herbicide that poisons the plant from within. It is applied to the soil before planting and absorbed by the roots of the crop. Nitrates are applied to plants in the form of anhydrous ammonia, another water-soluble substance. These chemicals
contaminate groundwater or run into streams and end up in the bodies of people living in
agriculturally intense areas. Even more atrazine and nitrates are being put into the
environment as farmers continue to receive increasingly high subsidies for corn.
Any study looking at agriculture and cancer should inquire into and fund studies of
communities where ethanol plants are located. There is a phenomenal amount of benzene
released into the environment when ethanol is produced, and the associated health risks need
to be assessed.
Indianapolis, IN
14
October 21, 2008
Organic agriculture leaps 20 percent every year in the U.S. but needs to be fully embraced, as it comprises only 2 percent of total agriculture. Organic farming can meet the high yields of conventional farming and can also contribute to protection of our climate—organic soils
sequester carbon and use much less fuel. Organic farming may also increase food security
and contribute to better public health.
Southern Illinois University’s new Simmons Cooper Cancer Center is the only tertiary care cancer center in the U.S. located in a rural area and is perfectly situated to send out rapid-response teams into farming communities. Such tertiary care cancer centers can help identify
patterns between pesticides in drinking water wells and particular cancers in the population.
MS. JOAN FLOCKS:
PESTICIDE POLICY AND FARM WORKER HEALTH