As human health issues relating to urban smog continue to concern state and municipal governments, the Kentucky Corn Promotion Council invested farmer checkoff funds to develop material that proves higher ethanol blends as a meaningful solution to the status quo fuels, like petroleum gasoline, and future fuels, like electricity. This was not an environmental investigation; it was an investigation in human health impacts.
We commissioned work to be done by researchers at The Hormel Institute within University of Minnesota, a global authority in biomedical research, to prove links from regular liquid fuels which require aromatics that contain carcinogens from BTEX compounds to lung cancer and breast cancer.
These efforts are focused entirely on boosting corn demand, since ethanol is a drop-in replacement to aromatics in liquid motor fuel that allows reduced tailpipe emissions. The study investigated these same health impacts in areas around airports to understand increases in cancer in those areas, and near powerplants to compare life-cycle emissions from cars fueled by ethanol to cars fueled by electricity.
After several years of testing, the researchers are wrapping up the project and beginning to publish peer reviewed medical research that will find its way into some of the world’s most respected medical journals.
Relating to breast cancer, the project focuses on whether a mother’s exposure to the BTEX compounds via inhalation during pregnancy increases the risk of her female offspring developing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH)–induced breast cancer later in life. The project also explores if maternal exposure to chemicals raises the mother’s own risk of getting breast cancer.
Lung cancer research involves exposing cells to an aromatic compound, then analyzing changes in the cells’ DNA and RNA. The study uses mouse models with cancers treated with these compounds to see how they respond to chemotherapy.
Volunteer leaders serving on the Kentucky Corn Promotion Council are constantly looking for opportunities to use farmer-derived funds to enhance corn grind. This information is a great example of an investment that will offer ethanol a new angle for finding itself into the tanks of automobiles and aircraft.