Science advisors are calling on the government for an investigation into the potential links between the use of pesticides and brain disease.

The government’s advisory committee on pesticides is recommending laboratory research to look at whether and how pesticide chemicals may cause Parkinson’s disease.

At the same time, the Department of Health’s committee on carcinogenicity has called for better monitoring of pesticide use due to possible links with prostate cancer.

According to media reports, the pesticides advisory committee said it would be “useful” to set up long-term health studies of workers making or using pesticides.

At the moment, studies have failed to find any definite connection between well-water drinking, farming, pesticide exposure and rural living. An EU funded study into the subject, by scientists at Aberdeen University as well as in Finland, Romania, Malta and Italy, is nearing an end, but more study is still needed, advisors claimed.

A spokesman for Defra told newspapers: “A link between pesticides exposure and Parkinson’s cannot be discounted based on the evidence already available, that is why further research is required.”