Cancer Incidence of 2,4-D Production Workers

Carol Burns, Kenneth Bodner, Gerard Swaen, James Collins, Kathy Beard and Marcia Lee
Additional contact information
Carol Burns: The Dow Chemical Company, Epidemiology, 1803 Building, Midland, MI 48674, USA
Kenneth Bodner: The Dow Chemical Company, Epidemiology, 1803 Building, Midland, MI 48674, USA
Gerard Swaen: Dow Benelux BV, Gaspeldoorn 24, Maastricht, Limburg, 6226WR, The Netherlands
James Collins: The Dow Chemical Company, Epidemiology, 1803 Building, Midland, MI 48674, USA
Kathy Beard: The Dow Chemical Company, Industrial Hygiene, 1803 Building, Midland, MI 48674, USA
Marcia Lee: The Dow Chemical Company, Occupational Health, 607 Building, Midland, MI 48674, USA

IJERPH, 2011, vol. 8, issue 9, 1-12

Abstract: Despite showing no evidence of carcinogenicity in laboratory animals, the herbicide 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) has been associated with non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) in some human epidemiology studies, albeit inconsistently. We matched an existing cohort of 2,4-D manufacturing employees with cancer registries in three US states resulting in 244 cancers compared to 276 expected cases. The Standardized Incidence Ratio (SIR) for the 14 NHL cases was 1.36 (95% Confidence Interval (CI) 0.74–2.29). Risk estimates were higher in the upper cumulative exposure and duration subgroups, yet not statistically significant. There were no clear patterns of NHL risk with period of hire and histology subtypes. Statistically significant results were observed for prostate cancer (SIR = 0.74, 95% CI 0.57–0.94), and “other respiratory” cancers (SIR = 3.79, 95% CI 1.22–8.84; 4 of 5 cases were mesotheliomas). Overall, we observed fewer cancer cases than expected, and a non statistically significant increase in the number of NHL cases.

Keywords: 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid; cancer; occupation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/8/9/3579/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/8/9/3579/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:8:y:2011:i:9:p:3579-3590:d:13813

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().