Upcoming Discussion: Pesticides and Cancer – Join Investigate Midwest on May 7

Join Investigate Midwest on May 7 for an insightful discussion on pesticides and their potential links to cancer. Learn how agricultural practices impact health and the environment.

(An invitations from one of our media partners)

Dear Editor/The Narrative Matters, 

Earlier this year, the Ag & Water Desk hosted a collaborative panel with our partner newsroom, Investigate Midwest, exploring how tariffs and the rise of South American soybeans in the global marketplace are causing trouble for Basin farmers. (Read more about that event here.)

Now, we’d like to invite you to another discussion Investigate Midwest is hosting on pesticides and cancer, coming up May 7.

Pesticides have our attention, from Estefanía Pinto Ruiz’s reporting on a farmer battling cancer he believes to be related to working with Roundup, to concerns over “pesticide drift” impacting vineyards. 

Investigate Midwest’s Lauren Cross shares more:

When Lisa Lawler was diagnosed with breast cancer, she expected the explanation to be genetic.

A genetics test ruled that out, and her doctors told her it was likely environmental. 

That raised a different question, one she said that isn’t talked about enough in her rural Iowa community: What’s in the environment that’s causing cancer?

Lauren Cross,

Investigate Midwest

Tickets

That question sits at the center of recent reporting by Investigate Midwest, and it’s one the newsroom will take up in a live virtual panel May 7, bringing together researchers, a physician, journalists and a cancer survivor to examine pesticide exposure and cancer risk in agricultural communities.

The conversation builds on recent reporting from editor-in-chief Ben Felder, who spoke with Lawler and more than 100 farmers, environmentalists, lawmakers and scientists about how cancer is showing up in their communities. In counties like Lawler’s, where pesticide use is among the highest in the country, cancer has become common enough that, as she put it, “You just assume you will get it.”

That reporting also points to broader patterns. Many of the counties with the highest pesticide use also report higher cancer rates. Analyses from groups like Food & Water Watch and the Iowa Environmental Council raise similar concerns.

At the same time, the picture is not straightforward. Exposure can be difficult to measure, health outcomes can take years or decades to develop, and researchers, regulators and courts often rely on different standards and reach different conclusions, as seen in ongoing lawsuits over products like Bayer’s Roundup.

For the people living in these communities, that can leave a gap between what’s being studied and what’s being experienced.

The goal of the panel is to bring those different perspectives into one conversation, from patient care and research to reporting and lived experience, and spend time with the questions that don’t yet have clear answers.

The conversation, sponsored by Second Story Fundraising, will take place May 7 at 10 a.m. CT. Registration is free, and you can sign up here.

Michael again. We hope to see you on the 7th. Before we go, our team just got home from a great week exploring Chicago for the annual Society of Environmental Journalists conference. You can see a few of the events they attended on our Instagram, including tours of ag and steel facilities, our gathering at a historic bridge museum to discuss the reversal of the Chicago River, and our training for fellow journalists on using solutions methods & data effectively.  We’ll have more reports on that in the coming weeks.

Sincerely, Michael CroweOperations ManagerAg & Water Desk

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The Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk is an independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri in partnership with Report for America, with major funding from the Walton Family Foundation. 

pesticides, cancer, agriculture, Investigate Midwest, Basin farmers, South American soybeans, tariffs, environmental health, farming practices, food safety, agricultural policy, water issues

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