RURAL HEALTH AND PESTICIDES.

The US-based Agricultural Health Study (AHS) is the only major long term study on rural health that includes the effects of pesticides on farmers and farm families. Launched in 1994, the study involves over 89,000 people from Iowa and North Carolina.

The goals of AHS are to investigate the effects of environmental, occupational, dietary and genetic factors on the health of the agricultural population. Among other findings to date, researchers have found links between pesticides and prostate cancer, retina degeneration, respiratory effects and lung cancer. AHS findings will be important to any modern farmer and farm community as these studies will explore the health effects of lower, insidious doses od pesticides over a long period.

The AHS study is sponsored by the National Institute of Health and the Environmental Protection Agency.


...from, Organic Lifestyles, 2006.