Study Links Lawn Chemicals To Cancer In Dogs

Study links lawn chemicals to cancer in dogs
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4797699/

Purdue researchers hope to study children next

A study that links lawn chemicals to bladder cancer in Scottish terriers could
help shed light on whether they cause cancer in some people, U.S. researchers
said in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medicine Association.

For their report, Purdue University researchers surveyed 83 owners of Scottish
terriers whose pets had recently been diagnosed with bladder cancer.

"The risk ... was found to be between four and seven times more likely in
exposed animals," said Larry Glickman, professor of epidemiology and
environmental medicine in Purdue's School of Veterinary Medicine.

Human connection
"While we hope to determine which of the many chemicals in lawn treatments are
responsible, we also hope the similarity between human and dog genomes will
allow us to find the genetic predisposition toward this form of cancer found
in both Scotties and certain people."

Glickman and his colleagues earlier found that Scotties are about 20 times
more likely to develop bladder cancer than other breeds.

"These dogs are more sensitive to some factors in their environment," Glickman
said in a statement. "As pets tend to spend a fair amount of time in contact
with plants treated with herbicides and insecticides, we decided to find out
whether lawn chemicals were having any effect on cancer frequency."

The National Cancer Institute says about 38,000 men and 15,000 women are
diagnosed with bladder cancer each year. Humans and animals often share genes
that can predispose them to cancer.

Children to be surveyed
"If such a gene exists in dogs, it's likely that it exists in a similar
location in the human genome," Glickman said. "Finding the dog gene could save
years in the search for it in humans and could also help us determine which
kids need to stay away from lawn chemicals."

Glickman's team plans to survey children, as well as dogs, in households that
have treated lawns and compare the chemicals in their urine samples with those
from households with untreated lawns.

"It's important to find out which lawn chemicals are being taken up by both
children and animals," he said.

Additional background is online at
http://www.avma.org/press/releases/0...e_exposure.asp and
www.vet.purdue.edu/epi/canblad.htm.