KDSN RADIO News
New entrant in governor’s race says it’s time to address Iowa’s cancer crisis
Republican Zach Lahn is promising to address the state’s water quality issues and Iowa’s rising cancer rate if he’s elected governor.
“It makes me tremendously sad to continue to go to funerals for people that are 65 when their parents died at 80. That’s just wrong,” Lahn said this evening. “…When it comes to this, I’m in and we’re going to figure out how to solve this.”
Lahn, who launched his campaign earlier today at his home in Belle Plaine, said politicians have been “sticking their heads in the sand” when it comes to addressing the cancer crisis in Iowa. “That has got to stop because big agriculture companies and big pharma companies have treated our farmers and our families not like neighbors, but as numbers,” Lahn said tonight.
Iowa has the second-highest rate of newly diagnosed cases of cancer and is one of only two states with an overall cancer rate that’s rising. Governor Kim Reynolds and the Republican-led legislature budgeted a million dollars this year for the University of Iowa research to try to find the cause. Lahn said it’s time to “hold companies accountable” that are contributing to Iowa’s cancer crisis and embrace the Make America Healthy Again agenda of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
“Des Moines, Iowa, has the world’s largest nitrate removal system on its water supply, and it can’t keep up. We are supposed to live in the Eden of our country. Iowa has 90% of the world’s ‘Grade A’ farmland…I love my neighbors. I’m a farmer myself. These big companies are lying to them and we know they’re lying to them and Bobby Kennedy’s uncovering that they’re lying to them and as governor I’m going to stand right next to him and fight for the healthy of my people,” Lahn said, to applause.
Lahn spoke tonight at the monthly gathering of a group of central Iowa Republicans and answered questions from the crowd. He was asked about the Iowa Utilities Commission decision granting Summit Carbon Solutions authority to seize land along its pipeline route from unwilling property owners. “Private property rights are foundational to our citizenship as Iowans, and eminent domain is not to be used for private gain,” Lahn said, to applause. “I would just venture to guess that not many of us have a problem with pipelines in general…I say make an Iowan happy, get the voluntary easements, and write big checks and just contribute to our state more.”
The four other Republicans who’ve been campaigning for governor also say they oppose the use of eminent domain for the carbon pipeline.
