TRUE OR FALSE. Do farmers have a 50% greater risk of having lymphoma or lip cancer, as Marie Toussaint claims?

After the announcement of the pause of the Ecophyto plan, the head of the list of environmentalists in the European elections, Marie Toussaint, called for a change of model. She says farmers have a 50% increased risk of getting lymphoma or lip cancer because of pesticides. This is rather true but it varies greatly depending on the cancer.

“A break is not a step back”, defends the Minister of Ecological Transition, Chritophe Béchu on Sunday February 4. After the pause announcement “for three weeks” of the Ecophyto plan, reactions are multiplying. Environmentalists denounce a decision that is devastating for the health of consumers and farmers. For the head of the list of Ecologists to the Europeans, Marie Toussaint, we must put an end to this agricultural model: “In the agricultural sector, there is a greater than 50% probability of falling ill with lymphoma or lip cancer, these are cancers which are linked to pesticides, and therefore we absolutely must change the model”, she said on RMC. Do farmers really have a 50% increased risk of having lymphoma or lip cancer? The cell true or false checked.

Among farmers, there is precisely 55% more lip cancer than in the rest of the population

This is rather true, but the situations vary greatly, particularly depending on the cancer. Among farmers, there is precisely 55% more lip cancer than in the rest of the population, only for men. Women farmers are not more exposed. We also find twice as many lymphoplasmacytic lymphomas, a certain type of blood cancer, among farmers. But if we take into account all types of lymphoma, the over-representation of this disease among farmers only reaches 9%.

All these results come from the latest bulletin, published in 2020, of the Agrican study, carried out since 2005 by researchers from the University of Caen-Normandie and the University of Bordeaux, and conducted in partnership with the Mutualité sociale agricole (MSA) and the Francim network, the French network of cancer registries. More than 180,000 farmers, affiliated with the MSA, are followed in this study. The researchers compared their health status to that of the general population.

The influence of pesticides highlighted in several cases, but environmental or genetic factors also exist

Of the 43 cancers studied in the study, six are more common among farmers than in the general population: skin melanoma (+29%), multiple myeloma (+20%), prostate cancer (+ 3%) as well as lip cancer, all lymphomas and lymphoplasmacytic lymphoma.

Is this increased risk only attributable to pesticides? No, the researchers insist: “the exhibition [aux pesticides] is usually not enough to say that exposure is a cause of the disease […] other parameters may be involved., such as environmental or genetic factors. For lip cancer, for example, the significant exposure of farmers to the sun is singled out.

But in several cases, the influence of pesticides has been clearly highlighted by researchers. The risk of prostate cancer is, for example, 20% higher for those who use insecticides on cattle. For multiple myeloma, the risk increases by 40% for farmers who treat their potatoes, wheat, or corn with pesticides.

Farmers less affected by lung, bladder or liver cancers

On the other hand, farmers are also less affected by certain cancers. They have 42% less risk of contracting lung cancer (-33% in women). Cancers of the bladder,œesophagus or liver are also less present. This does not mean, however, that pesticides play no role in these cancers. Seed treatment in particular still statistically increases the risk of bladder cancer.

All causes combined (cancers, tumors, heart problems, infections, accidents or suicides), the mortality of farmers is even 25% lower than that of the rest of the population. This difference can be explained in particular by the lifestyle of farmers: they smoke less, eat better, exercise more and live in less polluted environments than in the city. The researchers also call for caution regarding this result. There is also a “healthy worker bias”. People whose health is too precarious and who can no longer work are not selected from the cohort of farmers.