Of Pesticides and Prostate Cancer
Data links 22 chemicals to increased incidence of the disease
This week, I’ve been practicing saying words like trifluralin, thifensulfuron and linuron and no — I’m not working on a bootleg audiobook recording of the Silmarillion, I am learning about pesticides and herbicides and their potential relationship to prostate cancer.
Before we dig in, I’m going to “both sides” this for a minute. Yes, pesticides and herbicides — the stuff we use to grow our crops — are chemicals. Many of them are chemicals that can not be found in nature. But that being said, these are fabulously successful chemicals. Their development is arguably responsible for the world we have today. Estimates suggest that without the use of herbicides or pesticides, crop yields would be reduced around 30%. And crop stability — our ability to expect certain yields year in and year out, without worrying about blights and mass die-offs — is critical for societal stability. If I snapped my fingers and made all herbicides and pesticides disappear, we would quickly be in the midst of a worldwide famine — not to mention an economic crisis the likes of which we’ve never seen.
