Pollution

John Meeker

Walking Beans, Hair, and Reproductive Samples: From Pesticides to Public Health

John Meeker

As a teenager growing up in rural Iowa, John Meeker spent countless hours in the corn and soybean fields doing farm work to make money. “We would often be out ‘walking beans,’ where you go row by row through soy fields to kill weeds,” he says. He and his friends would receive an unmarked bottle of liquid and would either walk or ride a tractor as they sprayed.