France has launched a nationwide probe into incidents of babies being born with either missing or deformed arms after abnormal rates of birth defects were detected in several regions of the country.
A public health scare have sparked with missing upper limbs after the discovery of nearly a dozen new suspected cases.The national health agency had initially dismissed claims that a cluster of seven infants born with abnormalities in the Ain area near the Swiss border was abnormally high.
However, after 11 further cases of babies born with missing or deformed arms and hands were identified, the agency’s head, François Bourdillon, said a full investigation was under way.
“We will look at all the suspect cases,” Bourdillon said, adding that the results would be known in three months.
A relatively small number of cases have been detected so far in total about 25 over the past 15 years in the regions of Brittany, Loire-Atlantique and Ain, but the defects have caused public alarm and have been widely reported by the French media and Health Minister Agnes Buzyn has vowed to investigate further.
So far, no explanation has been found for the deformations despite tests on the mothers to see if they were exposed to common substances.
Some environmentalists have claimed pesticides or other chemicals could be to blame the cases are clustered in rural areas but there is no evidence at this point to back up the claims.
The scientist, Emmanuelle Amar, has been hailed as a whistleblower by ecologists and campaigners, but has been attacked for scare-mongering by others, including fellow scientists.
>Juthy Saha
Nationwide Investigation about Babies Arm Defects in France
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