An interdisciplinary study of environmental risk: A case study of atrazine.

摘要

Pesticide issues involving health and economic concerns are complex, biosocial phenomena that require an interdisciplinary approach. Little information is available on the health impacts and risks for the general population from contamination of drinking water by atrazine—a common corn herbicide used extensively in Wisconsin. Nor have data been compiled that assess the role of the agricultural media is risk communication about this herbicide.; A content analysis of the Farm Journal from 1960 to 2000 inclusive was performed to describe the social construction of atrazine with a focus on gender, safety, and health issues. The Farm Journal tended to downplay safety and health issue. The Journal also portrayed agriculture as a masculine enterprise with little attention given to the women's roles or concerns.; The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection dataset of agricultural chemical contamination of well water (n = 16,643) was used to assign atrazine exposure levels to participants geocoded residences from a population-based, case-control breast cancer study (n = 14,804). Exposure was measured by the concentration of atrazine in the nearest sampled well for those living in rural areas and the community water supply's atrazine value for those living within municipal civil divisions. Logistic regression analysis, controlling for established breast cancer risk factors, was performed in three levels: (1) for women statewide (n = 14,804), (2) for women in seven contiguous high atrazine-use counties (n = 2,141), and (3) for women in one county, Dane (n = 943). Compared to women living near wells with no detectable atrazine, exposure to atrazine was not associated with breast cancer risk considering the entire state (OR = 1.0, 95% CI 1.0–1.1), a seven-county, high-atrazine region (OR= 1.0, 95% CI 0.8–1.2), and Dane County (OR= 0.9, 95% CI 0.7–1.3). Multivariate odds ratios of breast cancer for all levels of atrazine exposure assignment did not substantially change with increasing exposure levels or when stratified by regions. This study provides no evidence for an association between atrazine exposure from drinking water and breast cancer risk. However, possible exposure misclassification may have biased this study towards a negative finding.