Mysterious Birth Defects: No Answers, Only Questions

[WeatherWoman]

Your thoughts?

I would be surprsied if it is linked to farming practices and the use of pesticides.

There’s barely a bump beneath Jocelyn Robles’ gray T-shirt, but she already knows the baby is there — and that the child she’s carrying suffers from a rare and fatal birth defect known as anencephaly.

So the 23-year-old farmworker from Yakima, Washington, had questions Tuesday night for the health officials, scientists and other experts gathered to discuss the cause of an alarming local spike in the disorder that leaves babies missing parts of the skull or brain.

“At this point, you don’t know anything about that, right?” asked Robles, whose baby is due on Halloween.

Since 2010, at least 30 babies — now 31 — have been diagnosed with anencephaly in a three-county area of central Washington state that includes Yakima and Sunnyside, where Robles grew up. That’s a rate of 8.7 per 10,000 births in the region, far higher than the national rate of 2.1 cases for 10,000 births.


“We would love to find a smoking gun.”

The problem has stumped Washington health officials, who say they can find no common link or exposure to explain the rise in the severe defects first noticed by a nurse at a rural hospital in 2012. They say many small clusters of birth defects turn out to be nothing more than coincidence.

“We would love to find a smoking gun,” said Juliet VanEenwyk, the Washington state epidemiologist who helped lead the review of medical records that detected the problem.


Now, state health officials have turned to the public, including about three dozen people who showed up at the Sunnyside Community Center for the first of two public “listening sessions” designed to gather citizen input before a high-level advisory group decides how to move forward. The second one is Wednesday night in Kennewick.

The group may have been small — and local residents may have been outnumbered by health care advocates and members of the media — but they demanded answers just the same.

“What might we expect here? What’s likely to happen here?” asked Dr. Dean Effler, a Toppenish, Washington, pediatrician who attended the session.

Others wanted to know exactly how long the problem had been going on, whether it could be linked to diet, occupation, geography — or the Hanford nuclear plant in nearby Richland.

State officials reiterated their previous answers — no, no, no and no — and said they planned to come up with new ideas for investigation at meetings that are set to begin in mid-June and continue throughout the summer.

[BelieveNothing]

I dont believe in coincidence ; )

It could be any number of corporation created toxins causing this...but it certainly is not natures way!

Accountability is probably the greatest challenge of our time.

Thank you for the info :)

[Glacier]

Your thoughts?

I would be surprised if it is linked to farming practices and the use of pesticides.

This wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that Yakima is the closest city the most toxic site in the United Snakes? Thyroid problems are also very common in the area.

[BelieveNothing]

I didnt know that about Yakima...whats going on there that is highly toxic?

[A_Britishcolumbian]

the hanford nuclear facility is about 20 -30 kms away. hanford, the place the usa used to build the bombs, and irradiate their own as well as us. nine nuclear reactors and five large plutonium processing plants.

sit in the fire, don't be surprised when your butt gets burned.

[BelieveNothing]

That would do it!

Thanks for the info :)

[WeatherWoman]

Interesting.

I have family in Finland that were in the follow out area for chernobyl. My grandmother had cancer twice and two of my cousin fall on the autism spectrum. The feeling there is that these were a result of the fall out.