WHATʼS NEW?: People across a particular part of Central Asia have an elevated risk of esophageal cancer, but no one has yet discovered quite why. This study asks how contact with animals influences risk. The authors gave a questionnaire to people in northern Iran with and without esophageal squamous cell cancer, inquiring about their contact with various animals, including horses, dogs, poultry, and ruminants, such as sheep and cattle. It turned out that contact with ruminants was associated with an 8-fold increase in risk of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, and the longer the exposure over a lifetime, the greater the risk.