People who live in areas where there is agricultural chemical spraying of herbicides and pesticides, have a similar cancer risk to that of smokers; even children and young adults are at risk.
This risk is not just confined to the farmers or people doing the spraying but is found in all people in the local vicinity in rural areas, and those at risk include children and younger adults not just the over 60s age group and baby-boomers that cancer charities suggest develop the majority of cancers.
The cancers seen most often include leukaemia, lymphoma (NHL), lung, colon, bladder and pancreatic cancer.
Chris Woollams, one of the CANCERactive founders and Oxford University Biochemist commented, “This may be news to many Americans but we conducted a complete review of the subject in 2021 for regular readers, with the title Pesticides and their links to cancer.”
This new study was from researchers at Rocky Vista University who conducted a thorough analysis of cancer data from the NIH by county in the USA, cross referenced to the US Geological Survey and the incidence of usage of 69 pesticides and herbicides..
Cancer risk rose in areas of significant pesticide usage and risk was ‘on a par with smoking’, which introduces some 70 chemicals into the body.
The researchers identified specific areas of the USA where cancer risk was higher, and showed which chemicals contributed significantly to cancer risk in those areas - for example, Chlorpyrifos, Paraquat and Atrazine correlated with endocrine disruption and kidney cancer; Organophosphates were linked to fertility declines and endocrine cancers ; the herbicide Glyphosate with active ingredient RoundUp was linked to blood and lymph cancers; Dicamba was linked to higher risk for colon and pancreatic cancer.
While IARC, the International Research Agency on Cancer in Europe, has named and shamed many such chemicals, the FDA still has a list of less than 40 chemicals which it believes cause cancer.
Go to: Cancer risk in the Workplace
*****
Reference
-
Frontiers in Cancer Control and Society - https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/cancer-control-and-society/articles/10.3389/fcacs.2024.1368086/full
.