A biomonitoring study has revealed that the toxic weedkillers dicamba and 2,4-D were found in all 10,0037 pregnant participants during 2010 to 2012, and that the levels of those herbicides in pregnant women has increased between 2020 to 2022.
2,4-D can cause decreased head circumference in infants, deficits in auditory processing in infants, oxidative stress, while dicamba can cause abnormal cell division and growth, increased risk of birth defects in male offspring, increased risk of liver and intrahepatic bile duct cancer, according to the researchers in the ‘Introduction’ section.
“100% of the pregnant study participants had 2,4-D detected in their urine in both the 2010–2012 cohort and the 2020–2022 cohort,” the study said in the ‘Discussion’ section.
Not only was 2,4-D detected in all women in the earlier cohort, dicamba increased significantly in the later cohort.
“…the proportion of women with dicamba detected in their urine is significantly higher in the more recent cohort,” the study said in the ‘Results’ section. “Though 2,4-D concentration levels increased, the difference was not significant.”
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