Children from houses where hanging insecticidal strips are used are at almost twice the risk of developing leukaemia. The risk rises to threefold if the strips were used in the last three months of pregnancy. Dichlorvos, the main insecticide used in hanging strips is classified by the US Environmental Protection Agency as a human carcinogen.

Researchers from the North Carolina State Center for Health and Environmental Studies have also found that children living in houses with gardens treated with chemicals are almost four times more likely to contract soft tissue sarcomas, a type of cancer.

Ed.- (i) Dichlorvos, the main insecticide used in hanging strips is classified by the US Environmental Protection Agency as a human carcinogen. 2,4-D, the main weedkiller used in gardens, has been linked with cancer in farm workers by several studies.

US researchers have examined the impact of spraying lawns with the pesticide 2,4-D. They found that:

• walking on treated lawns as much as a week after spraying transfered significant amounts of 2,4-D onto carpet, where it could enter childrens' bodies through skin contact
• the presence of pets increased this
• taking shoes off at the door decreased this
• so-called 'track-in' was a far greater cause of indoors contamination than spray drift in the air
• a week after spraying ambient levels of 2,4-D had risen an average twelvefold, but in some cases by up to 400 times
• 80-90% of US households use pesticides

A US study has found that scottish terriers that played on herbicide-treated lawns ran a four- to sevenfold risk of developing a bladder cancer called 'transitional cell carcinoma' (TCC) compared to scotties that played on untreated lawns. The effect was noted particularly when phenoxy herbicides (2,4-D, MCPA, MCPP) had been used.

Bladder TCC in dogs rose sixfold between 1975 and 1995, the period over which the use of phenoxy herbicides also increased dramatically.

Courtesy of Pesticides Action Network's Current Research Monitor