Photo credit: Jan Tik

The Agricultural Health Study investigated the relationship between specific fungicides and pesticides and the development of Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (NHL) in pesticide applicators, primarily farmers, from North Carolina and Iowa. In a recent article published in PLOS One, health information was analyzed from 54,306 participants enrolled in the study, including 523 applicators who were diagnosed with NHL between 1993 and 2010. Twenty-six different pesticides including insecticides, fungicides and fumigants were investigated to determine if exposure was linked to NHL incidence. Results suggest that exposure to pesticides from many different classes of chemicals was linked to an increased risk of NHL. This study is the first to find a correlation between exposure to the pesticides DDT, lindane, permethrin, diazinon and terbufos with specific types of Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma.