Iowa’s Cancer Rate Is Skyrocketing. Our Tests Prove Why.
Cancer rates in Iowa are rising faster than anywhere else in the country.
Politicians blame individual choices, but the real villain is the industrial farming covering the state.
We went, tested the water, and found cancer causing levels of chemicals running through Iowa.
If you’d like to get a free nitrate testing kit, you can request one from Nitrate Watch:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdEIxuBMNpe54z2yqvrTjCRvqlVuUx8_rYAlqDFt5mdW2Sa-Q/viewform
Once you test your water, log your results in their database to build a publicly sourced dataset that can’t be covered up.
Producer & Host: Katie Nixdorf
Editor & Motion Graphics: Lewis Wilcox
Videographers: Jack Davis, Jack Belisle
Video Production Manager: Isabel Atalaya
Video Production Coordinator: Jodi Clemens
Video Production Fellow: Astrid Dong
Supervising Producer: Meg Herschlein
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More Perfect Union is an Emmy-winning, nonprofit newsroom whose mission is to build power for working people. Here’s what that means: We report on the real struggles and challenges of the working class from a working-class perspective. We attempt to connect those problems to potential solutions. We report on the abuses and wrongdoing of corporate power. And we seek to hold accountable the ultra-rich who have too much power over America’s political and economic systems.
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@garolstipock
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
Alas, they'll win because when have they ever lost? The corporation is truly the only citizen that really matters. The government's been showing you this for as long as you've been alive. They won't stop now. They intend the people to be paying spectators, not participants. After all, the game has long been a fixed game.
@Barolec
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
Well, slipknot was made in iowa so that explains a lot…
@Mimilong27
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
FARM YOUR YARD! Use reverse osmosis to filter your water. At least that’s a start.
Jesus Christ is my Lord & Savior He saved me and miraculously healed me in a Near Death Experience.✝️
@samonitus
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
Fertilizer is not the only reason but it contributes to the cancer surge.😰
@arhu74
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
Nitrates unhealthy and I recently started consuming more nitrate rich food for health as Nitrates are turned into NO which lowers blood pressure
@gbner34i
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
Pesticides and herbicides…you know why but you don't want to admit it.
@georgiethedoodle
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
Excited for the GOP to find a reason to ignore this problem, and for the people of Iowa to continue to voting against their health.
@clorofemully
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
This journalist did a great job! She asked the right questions and presented things clearly. It's so seamless you could almost not notice because youre just focused on the content. Thank you for sharing this story with us! It's horrifying.
@danielrandolph9170
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
OK WHY DO IOWA GOVERNOR & GOVERNMENT DOING ANYTHING 🤔 HELLO WHAT GOING ON
@marcuslarson5313
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
I'm so tired of living in a country where we dance around things like this. The only way things really will change is if we do serious overhaul on campaign financing. Lobbyists also need to go away. Until that happens, we are on the precipice of a collapse because we are trickling up to all power and control being in the hands of corporations who have the money to manipulate our politicians.
@kend1053
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
My wife and I lived in Glenwood Iowa for about 15 years. We had an old farmhouse and acreage from the late 1800s with a dug well 85 feet deep. This water was so full of nitrates the level was almost 20 times higher than what you could give livestock.
Nitrates rob your body of oxygen and this is important to understand as the human brain, especially that of a developing childs brain.
But let's look even further from Iowa, down the Missouri and Mississippi rivers to the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico where the nitrates rob all living organisms of oxygen.
Meanwhile, back in Iowa towns like Griswold have been trucking in water for decades.
Enough said. The next mass migration out of the Midwest won't be the dustbowl, it'll simply be because it's too unfit to live there.
@uplandskies
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
Small hog operations also produce manure- thousands of small operations or scores of large operations both need to control manure.
@uplandskies
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
The water is full of agricultural runoff
@DNukinFutz
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
Time for a massive purge. Gitmo won't be big enough to hold them all.
@frederickoch3128
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
To be fair society did demand cheep food, so famers adapted, because they want to survive. Every single person can take a small blame for this big mess.
@EmpressFerra
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
How terrible.
@jenniwhittle5688
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
What is happening in North Carolina. Have heard nothing after the hurricane
@shanemckenzie8681
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
adm.adm… high fructose corn syrup. I’ve been saying this for years look it up.
@dianny1998
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
It reminds me of an investigative story I saw on Loch Long in Scotland, and really similar to what happened in Ireland’s Lough Neagh. In Ireland, years of pig farmers and no control or monitoring on sludge and waste runoff would go into drains and bodies of water. To this day, they have maps that track drains that are connected or impacted by runoff pollution. But it’s insane to me how a single country of that size, the people who live there, have to remind themselves or visitors that all of their bodies of water are harmful and should not be used for rest spots/water sources. The video (on Ireland) was by Stephen J Reid for anyone wants to see it.
@Jockustoe
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
We've known these facts for decades now. I f*&$#ing learned this in primary(public highschool) school
@davestruder2325
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
I owe no one any thing I o Way. Iowa
. I will state these proven NiH PubMed proven science facts
. professional CANNABINOID SCIENCE 🔭 KILLS.. prevents colon BLADDER cervical and PANCREATIC CANCERS 💯 PERCENT. Per Harvard Dr Wilfred Ngwa, PhD.. March 5,2020
Iowa? MAYBE your politics are OWNED by oncology pulmonary neurology psychiatry VIROLOGY gynecology losers.
Shame
@janinemcnamara1976
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
Not that this is not an issue, but I believe a larger factor in the cancer crisis is the extensive herbicide and pesticide usage in the state.
@freepalestine1917
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
Stop eating animals for fucks sake.
@dumplingbeater3223
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
Nah you just want to ban red meat… I’m sure there is a problem with this but cancer is surging across the country… some say it’s the vaccine… some say it’s AI in the medical field or data centers… the last two are definitely accurate and that’s a new problem and the new cancers is a new problem..
@slurpeejunkiecraig
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
You injected a toxic poison into yourselves, despite us telling you NOT to do it, did it anyways like the good obedient slaves you are.
If you allow government and corporations to poison your water, food and land, despite us telling you they are doing this but you keep supporting it and voting for it like the good obedient slaves you are.
Most STILL WON'T LISTEN, despite us being right.
WE ARE TRYING TO SAVE YOUR LIVES AND WAKE YOU UP TO YOUR TRUE ENEMY.
Non Serviam
Lex Rex
No Masters, No Slaves
@tucosalamanca4478
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
The standard in Germany is 50 ppm 😮 Thank god everybody here buys bottled water.
Edit: my quiet expensive bottled water has 5 ppm 🙁
@bernarhp
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
They are talking about workers and consumers, not humans, that tells you everything about why this is a problem for the oligarchs all over the world. I’m so proud of how women are really thinking about their wellbeing and the wellbeing of their kids when thinking about having kids. What is the point of bringing more humans to this world when they are just going to be canibalize and slaved for profits?
@alexcraig8543
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
A politician sold out his community for an 18k donation?! How wickedly immoral is that? The corruption of politicians in the US is staggering. But, these farmers still keep voting for the people who are killing them. These people in Iowa have carcinogenic tap water, for god's sake!
@tinfoilfreak
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
Kim Reynolds has actively deregulated a bunch of water protection laws. Not gonna change unless we pull our heads out of our asses.
@gunarsagerry3502
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
Di masa lalu di eropa sering terjadi peracunan sumber air yg mengakibatkan wabah penyakit. Dan pelakunya, tahu lah…
@MF-ty2zn1
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
NITRATES are known to cause dementia too.
@ValSchuman
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
This is a very specific problem, and if enough people speak up about it, it may eventually be solved. But money in politics will continue creating problems like this. That's the root of the problem. Lobbying is legalized corruption that is worse than illegal corruption because it's absolutely everywhere in the US political system.
@valsyaranamual6853
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
You eat food with cancer causing ingredients.
@YogaKat213
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
CLOSE the INHUMANE & DISGUSTING FEED LOTS DOWN!!!! 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
@disruptapps
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
Its not mystery – its called "End Stage Capitalism Syndrome"
@davidchase9424
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
If they poison the water they poison:
The crops, The cattle, The bathing water, The drinking water, The people.
They can push all their fake meat, fake food, fake medicine, fake vaccines all they want because they have contaminated everything.
@jeffkitterman7191
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
This conjures up so much anger in me I can barely comment without sounding bitter beyond words
@RaagaA460
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
I'm so grateful, that i live in Europe and can drink my tap water because its quality is partly better than bottled water. And i am convinced that every country needs a good bureaucracy and even better any-corruption laws. Above all I'm so sorry for all the people who suffer from these horrible circumstances in the world's richest country.
@dantesstacks
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
yo i don't care anymore not its too late im moving out of the united states
@onnonius
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
It not just in Iowa, its a global mrna vaccination effect
@markmarco6277
June 9, 2026 at 6:47 am
Nitrates in water are carcinogenic when they convert to nitrite in the body. But Iowa has another cancer causing issue that could be elevated, and that's radon gas. Every county in Iowa is in Zone 1, which is the highest level for radioactive gas. Lung cancer is the predominant killer from radon, but radon can cause other cancers if it is chronically absorbed into the blood stream via the lungs. I live in zone 2 in Tennessee, but my radon levels measure well into zone 1 after it rains. So I am installing a radon mitigation fan and piping to suck that gas from under the house to the outside. Previous owner lived here 27 years and now has breast cancer…could be a link.
Comments are closed.