In Punjab, Crowding Onto The Cancer Train

All Things Considered, May 11, 2009 · Every night at about 9:30, Train No. 339 pulls into the shabby station in the northern Indian farm town of Bathinda, in Punjab state.

Locals call No. 339 by a chilling name — "the cancer train." It routinely carries at least 60 cancer patients who make the overnight journey with their families to the town of Bikaner for treatment at the government's regional cancer center.

People say they never used to see so many cancer patients in this farm region. Cancer was considered an urban disease, suffered by people who lived in cities choked with industry and pollution.

But research by one of the most respected medical institutes in India recently found that farming villages using large amounts of pesticides have significantly higher rates of cancer than villages that use less of the chemicals.

Researchers caution that the findings do not prove that pesticides are causing cancer. But they say the passengers crowding the cancer train are part of a medical mystery that could have repercussions around the world: Are the modern farming methods brought by the so-called Green Revolution of the 1960s and '70s making people sick?