State Launches Cancer Study After ProPublica Identifies Toxic Air Pollution Hot Spot

After learning from a ProPublica analysis that his Missouri city is a hot spot of toxic air pollution, Verona Mayor Joseph Heck demanded that government officials look into the local cancer rate.

Three months later, the state health department confirmed his fears: The rate of Non-Hodgkin lymphoma in the Verona zip code is more than twice as high as that of the surrounding county and state, officials told him. Non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a cancer that begins in the lymphatic system, can be caused by exposure to ethylene oxide, a potent carcinogen released by the BCP...