Does atrazine cause breast cancer in humans?
It is difficult to evaluate whether atrazine causes breast cancer in humans, because there are no published studies that have specifically looked at the rate of breast cancer in women with and without exposure to atrazine. Nearly all of the studies on agricultural workers exposed to atrazine and cancer risk have been done on men. A survey of women farmers in the U.S. did not find a higher rate of death from breast cancer in these women. However, this study was based on information from death certificates and no information was available on the women’s exposure to specific pesticides. Does atrazine cause other types of cancer in humans? A higher risk of cancer of the ovaries was observed in one study of Italian women farm workers exposed to atrazine. Atrazine exposure has also been associated with a higher risk of developing a type of cancer called non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. A higher risk of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma was observed in several studies of male agricultural workers in the midweste
