Herbicide use in farming and other jobs in relation to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) risk

Abstract

ObjectivesGiven mixed evidence for carcinogenicity of current-use herbicides, we studied the relationship between occupational herbicide use and risk of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) in a large, pooled study.MethodsWe pooled data from 10 case-control studies participating in the International Lymphoma Epidemiology Consortium, including 9229 cases and 9626 controls from North America, the European Union and Australia. Herbicide use was coded from self-report or by expert assessment in the individual studies, for herbicide groups (eg, phenoxy herbicides) and active ingredients (eg, 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), glyphosate). The association between each herbicide and NHL risk was estimated using logistic regression to produce ORs and 95% CIs, with adjustment for sociodemographic factors, farming and other pesticides.ResultsWe found no substantial association of all NHL risk with ever-use of any herbicide (OR=1.10, 95% CI: 0.94 to 1.29), nor with herbicide groups or active ingredients. Elevations in risk were observed for NHL subtypes with longer duration of phenoxy herbicide use, such as for any phenoxy herbicide with multiple myeloma (>25.5 years, OR=1.78, 95% CI: 0.74 to 4.27), 2,4-D with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (>25.5 years, OR=1.47, 95% CI: 0.67 to 3.21) and other (non-2,4-D) phenoxy herbicides with T-cell lymphoma (>6 years, lagged 10 years, OR=3.24, 95% CI: 1.03 to 10.2). An association between glyphosate and follicular lymphoma (lagged 10 years: OR=1.48, 95% CI: 0.98 to 2.25) was fairly consistent across analyses.ConclusionsMost of the herbicides examined were not associated with NHL risk. However, associations of phenoxy herbicides and glyphosate with particular NHL subtypes underscore the importance of estimating subtype-specific risks.

Modeling variation in mixture effects over space with a Bayesian spatially varying mixture model

“…Residential use of this chemical has been identified as having a null association with NHL in previous analyses by itself in this dataset 41 and in a mixture in a pooled analysis of several cohorts. 42 The former result supports a previous Bayesian analysis of these data that estimated global mixture effects and cumulative unmeasured spatial risk simultaneously 43 as well as one using WQS regression that found large importance weights for these and two other pesticides (γ-chlordane and o-phenylphenol) for a positive and significant mixture effect in Iowa. 10 The latter result was also identified in the Bayesian analysis, 43 and in another analysis a WQS index constrained to have positive association with NHL risk estimated a very small importance weight for 2,4-D, which is consistent with having a large weight in a mixture showing an inverse association with NHL.…”

“…Similarly, we found a negative and significant spatially varying association for another mixture of pesticides and NHL in northern and western Iowa, with 2,4‐D being the most important chemical in this mixture. Residential use of this chemical has been identified as having a null association with NHL in previous analyses by itself in this dataset 41 and in a mixture in a pooled analysis of several cohorts 42 . The former result supports a previous Bayesian analysis of these data that estimated global mixture effects and cumulative unmeasured spatial risk simultaneously 43 as well as one using WQS regression that found large importance weights for these and two other pesticides ($$$ \upgamma $$$‐chlordane and o ‐phenylphenol) for a positive and significant mixture effect in Iowa 10 .…”

Glyphosate - A Silent, Slow Killer?

“…Hira Saleem, 1 Abdul Rafeh Awan 2 Madam, Glyphosate, commercially known as Round Up, is one of the most widely used herbicides and pesticides worldwide. As a synthetic organophosphate compound, it comes in a crystalline, odourless and colourless form.…”

“…As of right now, there is a multitude of studies that link glyphosate to several morbidities. When a combined 9229 cases of farmers from North America, the European Union and Australia were assessed, glyphosate was directly linked to an increase in the onset of follicular lymphoma 2 . It was also associated with allergic and non-allergic wheezing among farm women in the Agricultural Health Study (2005-2010), which focused on farmers in Iowa and North Carolina 3 .…”

Mortality from nervous system diseases and cancer in agriculture workers: a case-control study in Italy

“…The early reviews showed that farmers have a lower risk of most major causes of death than the general population particularly in terms of total mortality, total cancer, health diseases and speci c cancers like lung cancer [5][6][7]. However, according to cohort and case-control studies [8,9], this occupational group has a higher risk for certain types of cancers, particularly Soft Tissue Sarcomas (STSs), non-Hodgkin lymphomas (NHLs) [10][11][12][13], Hodgkin's disease (HD), leukemia, multiple myeloma (MM) [14], prostate cancer [15][16][17][18] and cancer of the skin and lip [5,6].…”