Pesticides and prostate cancer: a review of epidemiologic studies with specific agricultural exposure information.

Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in US men, and the second most commonly diagnosed cancer among men worldwide. Although pesticides have been implicated in studies of prostate cancer among farmers, meta-analyses have found heterogeneity across studies, and a number of exposures and lifestyle factors may be unique to farmers. The purpose of this paper is to review the epidemiologic literature to evaluate the hypothesis that agricultural exposure to pesticides is causally associated with prostate cancer risk.

Estimating uncertainty in observational studies of associations between continuous variables: example of methylmercury and neuropsychological testing in children.

Background: We suggest that the need to account for systematic error may explain the apparent lack of agreement among studies of maternal dietary methylmercury exposure and neuropsychological testing outcomes in children, a topic of ongoing debate.

Methods: These sensitivity analyses address the possible role of systematic error on reported associations between low-level prenatal exposure to methylmercury and neuropsychological test results in two well known, but apparently conflicting cohort studies: the Faroe Islands Study (FIS) and the Seychelles Child Development Study (SCDS). We estimated the potential impact of confounding, selection bias, and information bias on reported results in these studies using the Boston Naming Test (BNT) score as the outcome variable.