Pesticides, including herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides, are linked to severe health risks such as neurological dysfunction, immune disorders, cancer, and Parkinson’s disease.
Exposure often involves a mixture of pesticides and off-target drift.
Research indicates that pesticide exposure may increase cancer risk similarly to smoking, particularly in areas of high agricultural activity.
Several cancers, including bladder, colon, leukemia, and lung cancers, are associated with pesticide use, with studies showing a significant link between pesticide exposure and increased cancer risk across the U.S. population.
These patterns of use were defined by latent class analysis; estimates were derived from generalized linear models adjusted for agricultural land use, total population, the Social Vulnerability Index, and smoking rates. This plot contrasts the counties that have the least risky use of agricultural pesticides with the counties that have the riskiest use of agricultural pesticides.
Source: Gerken, Jacob, et al. "Comprehensive assessment of pesticide use patterns and increased cancer risk." Frontiers in Cancer Control and Society 2 (2024): 1368086. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY).
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