Indoor bug killers are giving our kids cancer

We’ve all seen the commercial. You know, the one with the cartoon insects that promises one squirt of a powerful pesticide “kills bugs dead.”

But it looks like when it comes to killing, these toxic bug sprays don’t know when to stop.

Harvard researchers are frantically warning that many of the most popular pesticides on the market — ones you can buy at any supermarket or hardware store — are giving our kids and grandkids cancer.

And it looks like even the slightest exposure to these poisons can turn deadly for a child you love.

The killer under your sinkThere’s nothing harder to understand — or accept — than when a child is diagnosed with cancer.

You’ll hear plenty of long-winded explanations from doctors about genetics and other factors that can leave our kids with this deadly disease.

But it looks like there are plenty of other culprits we’ve never been told about. And the same household pesticides we’ve been relying on for years to kill roaches, ants and other critters may be leaving countless kids fighting for their lives.

Researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health carefully researched data on kids who developed leukemia or lymphoma.

And it turns out that children who had been exposed to any indoor insecticides were 47 percent more likely to come down with leukemia. And for lymphoma, the risk jumped by a heartbreaking 43 percent.

Of course, you’re going to hear plenty of talk from the companies who make this stuff about how childhood cancers are still pretty rare, and you should feel free to keep spraying.

But that’s complete nonsense.

Leukemia is the most common cancer found in children, and lymphoma is the third most common.

And Alex Lu, who led the study, said many adult cancers such as prostate and bladder may be triggered by exposure to bug killers during our childhoods.

Now the fact that these household pesticides are incredibly dangerous isn’t exactly news — I’ve been warning you about them for years. Lots of the sprays you’ll see at the supermarket belong to a class called organophosphates that were actually developed from biological weapons like nerve gas.

And previous studies proved that they can damage DNA, so it’s easy to see how they trigger cancer.

What’s really frightening is that researchers aren’t sure exactly how much exposure it takes to put kids at risk — and it could be very little. In fact, you can be sure that many of the kids in the Harvard study hadn’t been exposed to heavy-duty doses of the chemicals.

But the problem is that these pesticides can linger in your home for days. In fact, when Lu’s research is published in Pediatrics next month, another study will be sounding the alarm about this very risk.

This separate research is about a 7-month-old baby who died in her sleep — seemingly a victim of SIDS. But doctors who performed an autopsy on her found high levels of a bug killer in her brain tissue. The same insecticide her father sprayed on flies two weeks before her death.

Can you imagine anything more devastating than having a child die simply because you were trying to keep flies out of the house?

Look, we can research this until the cows come home, but as far as I’m concerned we have enough evidence right now to say using insect killers inside our homes is too big a risk to take.

And thankfully, it’s one we don’t have to.

For safe, and non-toxic ways to prevent and treat bug problems, check out this page from the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Sources:

“Report: Pesticide exposure linked to childhood cancer” Carina Storrs, September 14, 2015, CNN, ksat.com

“Is home pesticide use a cancer risk?” Molly Walker, September 14, 2015, MedpageToday, medpagetoday.com