14 DAY TRIAL // If you thought that spraying your plants with household insecticides and having your children in the garden is a good idea, here's a study that might make you change your mind.
According to a French research published in the Occupational and Environmental Medicine, household insecticides may increase the risk of childhood leukemia.
The findings are based on 280 children newly diagnosed with acute leukemia and a further 288 children matched for sex and age, but free of the disease.
Detailed face to face interviews were carried out with each of their mothers. These included questions about the employment history of both parents, the use of insecticides in the home and garden, and the use of insecticidal shampoos to eradicate head lice.
The risk of developing acute leukemia 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.
Exposure to garden insecticides and fungicides as a child was associated with a more than doubling of the risk of acute childhood leukemia.
And the use of insecticidal shampoos to eradicate head lice, based on what the mothers had said was associated with almost double the risk.
Still, report author Dr Florence Menegaux was quoted by BBC as saying that it was not possible to say for definite that insecticide use caused the leukemia and it was unclear what agent in it was potentially dangerous.