Risky Business: Agricultural Pesticides and Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma

What is Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma; also referred to as NHL? Is the increase in NHL cases related to the direct exposure to the pesticides? Are the pesticides that are being used sink into the ground and contaminate the water supply? These are the questions that I ask. My Grandpa owns many acres of land that he tended to in his younger years with corn, soybean, and wheat being the main produce. My grandparents have since retired and now rent out their land for the past 20 years to neighboring farmers. In 2005 my grandpa was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma and Leukemia he underwent radiation and immune therapy and since then has had an inactive status of the two. Did his occupation have anything to do with his diagnosis? Let us find out.

1) Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (NHL)

a) “is a cancer that starts in white blood cells called lymphocytes, which are part of the body’s immune system”. (Alteri, 2018)

b) Types of Lymphoma

i) B lymphocytes (B cells)

ii) T lymphocytes (T cells)

c) Risk factors and STATs

i) Genes vs outside source

ii) Race, gender, immune system, chemicals

2) Direct exposure to pesticides in the agriculture occupation

a) Most common pesticide used and why they are used

i) improving productivity, protecting the crops, disease control and the quality of the food (Aktar, 2009)

ii) Phenoxyacetic Acid Herbicides, Chlorophenol Herbicides, Triazine Herbicide, Organochlorine Insecticides, Organophosphate Insecticides, Carbamates. These are different types of pesticide that are used in protecting crops (Dreiher,, 2006)

b) NHL cases that were exposed to pesticides vs those that were not.

i) Hardell’s reports provide data that reviel that “Both exposure to glyphosate and other herbicides (Table 1) yielded increased risks for NHL. Among the different agents mentioned it is noted that 3 cases but no control were exposed to chlorosulphuron, and 4 cases and 3 controls were exposed to glyphosate” (p.1356)

ii) Hardell reported “Among herbicides, the phenoxyacetic acids constituted the main exposure category. These have been shown to increase the risk for NHL in several earlier studies.16,22–24,26,27 In this study, however, the risk of increase was restricted to exposure during the last two decades preceding the diagnosis. In fact, a decreasing risk was found with increasing time since last exposure.” (p.1385)

c) How the pesticides are applied

i) Are they done properly? (Anon. 2018.)

ii) Is the right equipment being used to reduce the exposure?

3) Pesticides that leech into the ground into the water supply

a) Types that were found

i) Carbamate pesticides “The most significant occurrences of groundwater contamination have been with the carbamate pesticides. Aldicarb has been detected in over 2,000 wells on Long Island as well as in 12 other states including Maine and New Jersey.” (Trautmann)

ii) Nitrate and atrazine “findings illustrate the potential significance of evaluating mixtures of compounds for toxicity. To our knowledge, this study is the first to evaluate NHL risk associated with exposure to both nitrate- and atrazine-contaminated drinking water. Our findings suggest that exposure to drinking water containing nitrate is associated with a nearly three-fold increase in risk for developing NHL if atrazine is also present in the drinking water” (Rhoades)

Researching the different types of NHL and finding that most studies done find there is an increase risk to some of the pesticides that are used in the agriculture occupation but also that there needs to be more research on the topic due to some find the results to be inconsistent.