EXCLUSIVE Residents of America's cancer-cursed state demand answers as rates of disease mysteriously soar READ MORE: Explosion of disease in America's cancer capital By Maiya Focht In Iowa For Dailymail.Com Published: 13:11 EDT, 26 August 2024 | Updated: 13:13 EDT, 26 August 2024 e-mail View comments Across Iowa , people have known for a long time what data is only now beginning to confirm — cancer incidence in the state is outstandingly high. Iowa became the focus of national attention earlier this year when data showed it had the fastest growing rate of new cancers of any state in America.
That's more than the Rust Belt states, where lifelong factory work, smoking rates and lack of healthcare puts locals at a higher risk for developing the disease. And more than southern states where rates of obesity, alcohol use and poverty make them more prone to the disease. A complex web of factors is thought to be at play - Iowa is a farming powerhouse and uses more potentially carcinogenic pesticides than anywhere else.
It's also sitting on a hotbed of radioactive gas, called radon, which can leech into homes undetected and cause lung cancer. Residents are unwilling to accept being sickened by their home and are demanding state leaders do something about the crisis. The Dunns raised their three boys in a suburb of Davenport, Iowa, which sits near the eastern border of the state Sharon Kendall-Dunn, 56, and Dave Dunn, 63, live in the eastern part of the state, in a suburban town call.