When pollution hits home.

Describes the fight the people of St. John the Baptist Parish of Louisiana, along the Mississippi River, are putting up against the large concentration of industrial factories they say are polluting their environment and causing many diseases, particularly cancer. Government assurances of safety; Role of poverty, joblessness, and race in location of toxic exposure; Rates of toxic exposure and mortality; Mortality rates in the industrialized river parishes of Louisiana; Anecdotal evidence that links pollution with specific incidence of disease; Examples of grass-roots fights against new facilities.