(NaturalNews) Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), a malignant disease of the bone marrow, is the most common cancer diagnosed in children. In fact, nearly one third of all pediatric cancers are cases of ALL. Although this form of cancer can be cured in many cases, in the worst case scenarios the cancer crowds out normal cells in the bone marrow, metastasizes to other organs and takes the lives of about 15 percent of the youngsters it attacks. What triggers so many kids, usually between the ages of three and seven, to develop this
cancer in the first place? A new study just published in the August issue of the journal
Therapeutic Drug Monitoring raises the suspicion that commonly used household
pesticides are the cause.
Previous studies in agricultural areas of the US have shown strong associations between pesticides and
childhood cancers but this is the first
research conducted in a large, urban area to look at the connection. The study, conducted between January of 2005 and January of 2008, involved 41 pairs of
children with ALL and their
mothers and a control group of 41 matched pairs of healthy children and their mothers. The volunteer research subjects were all from Lombardi and Children's National Medical Center and lived in the Washington metropolitan area.
Urine samples collected from the children and their mothers were analyzed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to look for metabolites that provide evidence of
household pesticide exposure. Specifically, the
scientists were looking for metabolites associated with the pesticides known by their chemical name as organophosphates (OP). The researchers found
evidence of the pesticides in the
urine of more than half of all the participants, but levels of two common OP metabolites, diethylthiophosphate (DETP) and diethyldithiophosphate (DEDTP), were significantly higher in the children who suffered from cancer. What's more, the mothers who participated in the study filled out questionnaires that revealed more moms whose
kids had cancer used pesticides (33 percent) than did the mothers in the control group (14 percent) whose youngsters were cancer-free.
"We know pesticides -- sprays, strips, or 'bombs,' are found in at least 85 percent of households, but obviously not all the children in these homes develop cancer. What this study suggests is an association between
pesticide exposure and the development of childhood ALL, but this isn't a cause-and-effect finding," the study's lead investigator, Offie Soldin, PhD, an epidemiologist at Lombardi, said in a statement to the media. "Future research would help us understand the exact role of pesticides in the development of cancer. We hypothesize that pre-natal
exposure coupled with genetic susceptibility or an additional environmental insult after birth could be to blame."
While the scientists aren't ready to flat out say pesticides
cause cancer, when you look at the big picture and see what is already known about the havoc pesticides appear to cause in the human body, it makes sense for
parents and parents-to-be to ditch pesticides -- for their own
health and for the health of their children. For example,
NaturalNews has previously reported on the link between residential pesticides and childhood brain cancer (
http://www.naturalnews.com/026155_pesticides_cancer_brain_cancer.html), and the strong association between a serious pre-cancerous blood condition and exposure to pesticides (
http://www.naturalnews.com/026626_pesticides_cancer_NCI.html).
For more information:http://explore.georgetown.edu/news/?ID=42929&PageTemplateID=295
Have comments on this article? Post them here:
people have commented on this article.
Email this article to a friend
Share this article on: 
Now Available from 
