What is happening in America's Cancertown is tragic, immoral and evil | Rev William Barber

Politicians have chosen process over lives and the result has been rampant cancer in the region

• Read more from the Guardian's Cancer Town series

"Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people" (Isaiah 10:1). I was reminded of this verse from the Bible when I read about the town of Reserve in Louisiana. It is the place in America with the highest risk of cancer due to air toxicity, caused by a raft of government and corporate failure that has deprived residents - many of whom are poor and black - of their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Reserve is home to the Pontchartrain Works facility, the only chemical plant in America to produce chloroprene, a likely carcinogen, that has spewed from the plant for almost 50 years. US government science has indicated this makes the risk of cancer in that area 50 times higher than the national average.