High pesticide-use counties often have higher-than-average late-stage cancer rates
This article was originally published by our Rural News Network partner, Investigate Midwest.
Seventy-one percent of counties that spray the most glyphosate have late-stage non-Hodgkin lymphoma incidence rates above the national average, according to a new data analysis from the advocacy group Food and Water Watch.
Last month, Investigate Midwest, in partnership with the Pulitzer Center’s StoryReach U.S. Fellowship, published an investigation that found 60% of the top 500 counties for pesticide use had overall cancer rates above the national average.
Food and Water Watch’s data analysis, which also found that most high-pesticide-use counties had cancer rates above the national average, included late-stage diagnosis, the stage of many plaintiffs who have sued large agricultural companies over cancer diagnoses.
The analysis looked at the top 20% of counties for glyphosate use and found that most were in the upper Midwest. Nearly three out of four of those counties had late-stage cancer rates higher than the national average.
Nearly 100,000 lawsuits have been settled by pesticide makers, most by Bayer, the maker of Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbicide.
“A lot of the strongest cases that are able to make it into litigation are the more aggressive, late-stage (cases),” Amanda Starbuck, a researcher with Food & Water Watch, told Investigate Midwest.
This article first appeared on Investigate Midwest and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The North Dakota News Cooperative is part of the Rural News Network. A project of the Institute for Nonprofit News, RNN is a resource hub for 500 nonprofit newsrooms dedicated to producing journalism as a public service.
Support independent journalism that puts North Dakota’s communities first. Your donation to the North Dakota News Cooperative helps us deliver in-depth reporting on the issues that matter most.
The North Dakota News Cooperative is a nonprofit news organization providing reliable and independent reporting on issues and events that impact the lives of North Dakotans. The organization increases the public’s access to quality journalism and advances news literacy across the state. For more information about NDNC or to make a charitable contribution, please visit newscoopnd.org. Send comments, suggestions or tips to michael@newscoopnd.org. Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NDNewsCoop.
