An 80-mile stretch of Louisiana known as “Cancer Alley” has rates of disease and birth defects SEVEN TIMES higher than the national average in its population of 1.5 million

Along an 85-mile road in Louisiana, residents are at seven times the risk of cancer than the national average, chronic health conditions have been diagnosed and babies are born underweight at three times the national average.

This road between Baton Rouge and New Orleans — on the banks of the Mississippi River — is called “Cancer Alley,” and people with homes along it blame where they live for the high rate of the disease.

The area is home to approximately 200 fossil fuel and petrochemical operations – the largest concentration of these facilities in the Western Hemisphere.

Earlier this year, Human Rights Watch published a report detailing the high rates of illness in the area, which residents call ‘death row’.

The report accuses state and federal regulators of failing to properly monitor the industry and says the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality has yet to address the dangers of fossil fuels and the minimum standards the government has set to protect the environment and human health. does not maintain.

Furthermore, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has failed to monitor Louisiana’s compliance with laws and mandates – and as a result, is failing to protect the environment and local residents.

For years, residents along the road have struggled with higher cancer rates, reproductive complications, maternal and newborn health, and respiratory diseases.

The HRW report shows that the area in the US with the highest risk of cancer from industrial air pollution – more than seven times the national average – is in Cancer Alley.

Babies here are born underweight at three times the national average and born premature at 2.5 times the national average.

HRW focused on nine parishes in Cancer Alley: Ascension, East Baton Rouge, Iberville, Jefferson, Orleans, St. Charles, St. James, St. John the Baptist and West Baton Rouge.

Together they provide shelter to more than 1.56 million people.

Sharon Lavigne, 71, lives in Welcome, a community in St James Parish, about an hour west of New Orleans along the 85-mile stretch.

She told HRW: ‘We are dying from breathing in the pollution from the industry. I feel like it’s a death sentence. As if we are being cremated, but not burned.’

Nearby, 66-year-old Janice Ferchaud underwent a mastectomy after being diagnosed with breast cancer. She told HRW she wants people to know what Cancer Alley residents are experiencing.

Ms Ferchaud attributed her cancer and the deaths of family members to the pollution given off by the plants.

Robert Taylor, 83, also a resident of Cancer Alley, spoke of the “dozens” of family members and friends, including his wife and mother, who have been diagnosed with or died from cancer.

In addition to neighbors’ stories of prostate, liver and breast cancer, mothers spoke of stillbirths, infertility, childhood asthma, bronchitis and chronic sinus infections.

Kaitlyn Joshua, who lives in Ascension Parish and has suffered from chronic asthma since childhood, told HRW that her doctor said, “Kaitlyn, it’s where you live. It’s the air quality. You’re going to have to get out of there.’

Also from Ascension Parish, Dominic Kruger said, “Everyone is sick and dying, and it’s just going to get worse.”

Angie Roberts, 57, from St James, has lived in the area for 28 years. In 2019, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy. Recently, her doctor discovered lumps in her other breast and she developed the autoimmune disease multiple sclerosis.

According to the report, fossil fuels and petrochemical emissions can increase the risk of autoimmune diseases such as MS.

Mrs Roberts said: ‘Who would want to live here? I’m dying here.’

Parents also told HRW to keep their children home from school and indoors due to poor air quality.

Louisiana’s Cancer Alley is far from the only area where residents are at risk.

A task force for clean air report In 2022, it was found that nearly 14 million people in the US were at increased risk of cancer due to toxic pollutants.

These people in 236 counties in 21 states face a cancer risk that exceeds the EPA’s one-in-a-million “concerning” threshold.

In 33 provinces the risk of cancer is greater than one in 250,000 and in three provinces the risk is one in 100,000

Action against breast cancer added that when women are exposed to cancer-causing chemicals and hormone-disrupting chemicals, it can affect their risk of breast cancer, especially when exposed during crucial developmental times, such as puberty.

A 2021 Harvard study found that more than 8 million people died in 2018 due to fossil fuel pollution, accounting for 18 percent of global deaths.

And according to the World Health Organization, people exposed to air pollution are more likely to develop strokes, heart disease, lung cancer, respiratory infections and countless other diseases.

WHO reported that environmental and household air pollution are linked to 7 million premature deaths annually.

For the report, HRW researchers focused on emissions from plants near playgrounds, schools, senior housing, homes, farms and businesses.

Researchers spoke to 37 residents along Cancer Alley between September 2022 and January 2024.

Antonia Juhasz, senior fossil fuel researcher at HRW, said: “The fossil fuel and petrochemical industries have created a ‘sacrifice zone’ in Louisiana.

“The failure of state and federal authorities to properly regulate the industry has serious consequences.”

In 2022, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment also called these areas in Louisiana “sacrifice zones” and considered them among the most polluted and dangerous places on earth.

And at least 19 more facilities are planned for Cancer Alley.

In 2020 alone, two-thirds of all greenhouse gas emissions in Louisiana came from 150 factories in Cancer Alley.

Following their findings, HRW researchers urged local, state and federal authorities to support laws regulating fossil fuels or petrochemical plants.

Lawmakers should limit the areas where these facilities are built and require their operators to “implement practices and procedures that protect the human rights of frontline communities, including by establishing and effectively enforcing regulations and taking immediate and comprehensive action to deter and remedy violations.”

In Louisiana specifically, the report states that the state’s Department of Environmental Quality should deny permits to build in communities already overburdened by pollution, and that the EPA should order facilities to cease operations until they can come into compliance with standards that are laid down in the Clean Air Act.