A recent study found that pesticide use in homes could be linked to an increased risk of leukemia or lymphoma, the most common types of childhood cancers, according to CNN. The researchers combined data from 16 previous studies that compared pesticide use to childhood leukemia or lymphoma incidences and used estimates of insecticides and herbicides inside and outside of the home.
The results showed that children who were exposed to indoor pesticides of any kind were approximately 43 to 47 percent more likely to have leukemia or lymphoma, according to WebMD. Interestingly, outdoor pesticides were not linked to any kind of childhood cancers.
"Childhood cancers are increasing year by year in this country, (and) there is disagreement about what is contributing to that, but pesticides have always been on the radar," said Chensheng Lu, an associate professor of environmental exposure biology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health who led the research.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports that common household pesticides poison thousands of children each year due to contact and exposure to their mouths, according to Healthline. To make matters worse, children under the age of 12 seem to be most vulnerable to the cancerous effects of pesticides.
"We are starting to get to the place where there is enough science, it just starts to add up to say that we can't really ignore anymore ... the role of environmental factors like pesticides in health," said Catherine J. Karr, director of the Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit at the University of Washington. "This study is a nice contribution because it focuses in on what is the effect of home use of pesticides versus (other) exposures."
