Childhood brain tumors are thankfully rare but, despite all the progress made over recent years, they are often associated with poor prognoses and low survival rates.
Published on Wednesday, March 31, in the
Environmental Research journal, the study also revealed that the pregnant women did not have to be working in agriculture or in close contact with pesticides for health-harming exposures to occur.
Study co-author Christina Lombardi, a public health researcher at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said there are large numbers of pregnant women and children living close to pesticide-treated farmlands. Both mothers and children could experience adverse health effects from their proximity to those farmlands.
The study is not the first to show that pesticide use poses a threat to pregnant women and their children. But it is unique in that it showed the specific pesticides linked to the development of different kinds of CNS tumors.