CANCER STUDY TO TRACK U.S. FARMERS

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, February 14, 1993                   TAG: 9302140017
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-13   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium
CANCER STUDY TO TRACK U.S. FARMERS
Farmers and people who work in their fields tend to have certain kinds of cancer more often than everyone else. And the federal government is about to spend $15 million to find out why.
About 100,000 farmers, their spouses and pesticide applicators in Iowa and North Carolina will be surveyed in the 10-year Agricultural Health Study. Information on their children will be included.
Researchers will be looking at how much pesticide and chemicals farmers use, how much time they spend outside, their family health history, eating and smoking habits.
"We have lots and lots of questions about pesticide exposure, but it's broader than that, because we want to take this opportunity to also look at their personal lifestyle characteristics and how that may relate to their cancers also," said Michael Alavanja, of the National Cancer Institute, co-director of the study.
"We wouldn't be ignoring other known causes."
Farmers have non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, brain cancer and leukemia more often than the general population, Alavanja said. They also tend to be more prone than the general population to multiple myeloma and cancers of the brain, prostate, stomach, skin and lip.
Scientists believe some increased risk might be due to chronic exposure to pesticides, chemical solvents, engine exhausts, animal viruses and sunlight. One theory holds that pesticides interfere with the body's immune system, allowing tumors to gain ground.
Researchers from the University of Iowa College of Medicine, Iowa City, and Survey Research Associates of Durham City, N.C., also will look at such health problems as birth defects and neurological disorders, Alavanja said.
The cancer institute said this will be the largest such study ever of American farm families. The Environmental Protection Agency and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences also are sponsoring it.
Alavanja said researchers will be trying out questionnaires this week and hope to get fully under way in December.
Alavanja said he devised the study because of complaints that previous studies indicating higher rates of cancer among farmers and agricultural workers were flawed. A main reason is that the surveys look backward, asking cancer victims to recall events such as exposures to possible carcinogens.
The new survey will be prospective, meaning researchers will start with healthy, cancer-free people and track them over the years.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB