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The article presents a study on farm pesticide exposure and glioma risk in men. The study involved adult men who were nonmetropolitan residents of Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa. Multiple logistic regressions, which were used to control for farm residence, education, age, age group, and exposure to other pesticides, revealed no association between glioma and 12 specific pesticides. Farm pesticide exposure was found to have no positive association with glioma. The excess brain cancer risk may be caused by other farm exposures.

An excess incidence of brain cancer in male farmers has been noted in several studies, but few studies have focused on women. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Upper Midwest Health Study evaluated effects of rural exposures for 341 female glioma cases and 528 controls, all adult (18-80 years of age) nonmetropolitan residents of Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. On average, controls lived longer on farms than did cases. After adjusting for age, age group, education, and farm residence, no association with glioma was observed for exposure to arsenicals, benzoic acids, carbamates, chloroacetanilides, dinitroanilines, inorganics, organochlorines, organophosphates, phenoxys, triazines, or urea-based or estrogenic pesticides. An increased risk of glioma was observed for carbamate herbicides but was not statistically significant (odds ratio = 3.0; 95% confidence interval, 0.9-9.5). No association was observed between glioma and exposure to 12 widely used specific pesticides, after adjustment for age, age group, education, and any other pesticide exposure. These results were not affected after exclusion of proxy respondents (43% of cases, 2% of controls). Women were less likely than men to have applied pesticides, but more likely to have laundered pesticide-contaminated clothes. Storing pesticides in the house was associated with a statistically non-significant increased risk. Results show that exposure to pesticides was not associated with an increased risk of intracranial gliomas in women. Other farm-related factors could be etiologic factors and will be discussed in future reports.