Insecticide link to leukaemia in kids

Household insecticides may increase the risk of childhood leukaemia, the results of new research suggests.

A team of researchers in France looked at 280 children newly diagnosed with leukaemia, along with 288 children who did not have the disease.

They carried out detailed interviews with the children's mothers. These included questions on the use of insecticides in the home and garden, as well as the use of insecticidal shampoos to eradicate head lice.

Could garden insecticides increase the risk?

The study found that the risk of developing acute leukaemia was almost twice as likely in children whose mothers said that they had used insecticides in the home while pregnant and long after the birth.

In fact, exposure to garden insecticides and fungicides as a child, was associated with a more than doubling of the risk of acute childhood leukaemia. Furthermore the use of insecticidal shampoos to eradicate head lice, based on what the mothers had said, was also associated with almost double the risk of the disease.

The researchers said that no one agent could be singled out and the link between insecticides and the development of acute childhood leukaemia 'remains questionable'.

"However the consistency of our results and the results from previous studies suggests that it may be opportune to consider preventive action", they added.

Details of these findings are published in the medical journal, Occupational and Environmental Medicine .