Tag: birth defects

Some Antibiotics in First Trimester Raise Risk of Major Birth Defects

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❝ Several common types of antibiotics were linked both to major congenital and to organ specific malformations in infants when taken during the first trimester of pregnancy, a retrospective Canadian cohort study found.

❝ Exposure to antibiotics, such as clindamycin, doxycycline, quinolones, macrolides and phenoxymethylpenicillin, increased the risk of these birth defects, reported Flory T. Muanda, MD, of the University of Montreal, and colleagues.

However, there was no increased risk of major congenital malformations linked to exposure to amoxicillin, cephalosporins, or nitrofurantoin, the authors wrote in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology…

❝ Researchers examined data from the Quebec pregnancy cohort, an ongoing population-based cohort with data on all pregnancies covered by Quebec Public Prescription Drug Insurance from 1998 to 2008, comprising about 140,000 infants.

Be aware.

❝ They concluded that, despite the small absolute risks associated with these birth defects, “physicians should consider prescribing safer antibiotics for the treatment of maternal infections when possible.”

Revisit the legacy of Agent Orange

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Click to enlarge — Reuters photographer Damir Sagolj

As April 30 approaches, marking 40 years since the end of the Vietnam War, people in Vietnam with severe mental and physical disabilities still feel the lingering effects of Agent Orange.

Respiratory cancer and birth defects amongst both Vietnamese and U.S. veterans have been linked to exposure to the defoliant. The U.S. military sprayed millions of gallons of Agent Orange onto Vietnam’s jungles during the conflict to expose northern communist troops.

Reuters photographer Damir Sagolj travelled through Vietnam to meet the people affected, four decades on.

I would say, “Never again”; but, I haven’t that much trust in our government, our politicians.

Thyroid drug tied to birth defects — once again

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Another study has linked the Graves’ disease treatment methimazole with birth defects, Japanese researchers reported…

In an interim analysis of the prospective POEM study, there was a far higher incidence of methimazole embryopathy in women who took the drug during their first trimester than would be expected in the general population…according to Naoko Arata, PhD, of the National Center for Child Health and Development in Tokyo.

Women shouldn’t use the drug in those early stages of pregnancy when the fetus is developing organs, she said at the American Thyroid Association meeting.

Most recommendations instruct clinicians to stop methimazole during pregnancy because of earlier associations with birth defects. These women should instead be treated with propylthiouracil (PTU), the guidelines state.

But PTU has been associated with liver injury to the mother and more recent research suggests that it may also carry risk of birth defects.

Indeed, at last year’s ATA meeting, Danish researchers reported that both drugs carried a higher risk of birth defects: 50% higher for PTU and 75% higher for methimazole compared with the general population…

When the fifth case of methimazole-related anomalies was reported in 2011 — out of a total of 85 live births — the researchers decided to conduct an interim analysis.

Arata said these five cases had exposure to methimazole during the whole pregnancy…

She said she strongly recommends not using methimazole during the organogenesis period in women with Graves’ disease, adding that preconception counseling is extremely important.

I hope enough doctors read about questions raised by studies like this. Even though I have a young, sharp, physician as my GP – I always make it a practice when in his office for a checkup to waylay him with a couple of the medical questions, procedures, studies and discoveries I’ve covered for one or another blog – just to see if he’s staying broadly up-to-date.

I would hate to know more than he does, even if it concerns a very small area of interest. I already qualify as a world-class hypochondriac. 🙂

Measles caused birth-defects for first time in 30 years in Sweden

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No, that ain’t Swedish. It’s ignoranush?

Sweden’s first case of congenital rubella in more 30 years has been discovered after a woman who was infected with the viral disease whilst on holiday gave birth to a child in Sweden with severe birth defects.

Since vaccination began in the 1970s rubella has all but disappeared in Sweden.

But a 22-year-old woman who lives in Halland, in southern Sweden, but was born in a country where vaccination against the disease is rare, caught the disease while visiting her home country during the early stages of her pregnancy, according to the local Hallands-Posten newspaper.

It is well known that rubella can cause birth defects. Unless you’re an ignorant religious nutball. The viral infectious disease often has mild symptoms, with a spreading rash and sometimes a fever.

However, the major issue with the disease is that those infected whilst pregnant have a high risk of suffering a miscarriage, or giving birth to a child with birth defects.

The woman’s child was born prematurely and with a number of defects, including problems with its eyes, ears, and heart.

“This case shows that we need to improve our screening of the people who come here from other countries, where the vaccination programmes aren’t as built out as ours,” said Maria Löfgren, assistant epidemiologist in Halland, to the newspaper.

Like potential immigrants from the United States – where religious beliefs are sufficient for someone to ignore vaccination. Cripes.

Research links rise in Falluja birth defects/cancers to US invasion

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White phosphorus being used in Falluja

A study examining the causes of a dramatic spike in birth defects in the Iraqi city of Falluja has for the first time concluded that genetic damage could have been caused by weaponry used in US assaults that took place six years ago.

The research, which will be published next week, confirms earlier estimates revealed by the Guardian of a major, unexplained rise in cancers and chronic neural-tube, cardiac and skeletal defects in newborns. The authors found that malformations are close to 11 times higher than normal rates, and rose to unprecedented levels in the first half of this year – a period that had not been surveyed in earlier reports…

“We suspect that the population is chronically exposed to an environmental agent,” said one of the report’s authors, environmental toxicologist Mozhgan Savabieasfahani. “We don’t know what that environmental factor is, but we are doing more tests to find out.”

The report identifies metals as potential contaminating agents afflicting the city – especially among pregnant mothers. “Metals are involved in regulating genome stability,” it says. “As environmental effectors, metals are potentially good candidates to cause birth defects.

The findings are likely to prompt further speculation that the defects were caused by depleted uranium rounds, which were heavily used in two large battles in the city in April and November 2004. The rounds, which contain ionising radiation, are a core component of the armouries of numerous militaries and militias…

The report acknowledges that other battlefield residues may also be responsible for the defects. “Many known war contaminants have the potential to interfere with normal embryonic and foetal development,” the report says. “The devastating effect of dioxins on the reproductive health of the Vietnamese people is well-known….”

The United States has owned up to nothing to help the victims of that environmental poisoning.

The researchers believe that the figures understate what they describe as an epidemic of abnormalities, because a large number of babies in Falluja are born at home with parents reluctant to seek help from authorities…

“An epidemic of birth defects is unfolding in Fallujah, Iraq,” said Savabieasfahani. “This is a serious public health crisis that needs global attention. We need independent and unbiased research into the possible causes of this epidemic.

RTFA. Having worked at thwarting the testing and development of DU weapons in New Mexico, I don’t need to be convinced of the dangers of depleted uranium ammo. It’s a pyrophoric metal that burns to dusty completion after ignition leaving it’s deadly structure blowing in the wind.

Huge increase in birth defects in Falluja, other battle zones

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“Chemical Rummie”
Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

Doctors in Iraq’s war-ravaged enclave of Falluja are dealing with up to 15 times as many chronic deformities in infants and a spike in early life cancers that may be linked to toxic materials left over from the fighting.

The extraordinary rise in birth defects has crystallised over recent months as specialists working in Falluja’s over-stretched health system have started compiling detailed clinical records of all babies born.

Neurologists and obstetricians in the city interviewed by the Guardian say the rise in birth defects – which include a baby born with two heads, babies with multiple tumours, and others with nervous system problems – are unprecedented and at present unexplainable.

A group of Iraqi and British officials…have petitioned the UN general assembly to ask that an independent committee fully investigate the defects and help clean up toxic materials left over decades of war – including the six years since Saddam Hussein was ousted…

Other health officials are also starting to focus on possible reasons, chief among them potential chemical or radiation poisonings. Abnormal clusters of infant tumours have also been repeatedly cited in Basra and Najaf – areas that have in the past also been intense battle zones where modern munitions have been heavily used.

Falluja was the scene of the only two setpiece battles that followed the US-led invasion. Twice in 2004, US marines and infantry units were engaged in heavy fighting with Sunni militia groups who had aligned with former Ba’athists and Iraqi army elements.

The first battle was fought to find those responsible for the deaths of four Blackwater private security contractors working for the US. The city was bombarded heavily by American artillery and fighter jets. Controversial weaponry was used, including white phosphorus, which the US government admitted deploying.

Having supported efforts to prevent testing of depleted uranium projectiles here in New Mexico, knowing something of the residue from radioactive pyrophoric metals, I’m not surprised by any of this.

Presumably, most of you won’t be surprised by the protestations of innocence and patriotic rationales that will flow from the Pentagon, politicians and other pimps of our military-industrial complex. Those who authorized most of this, those who continue to do so, will not relent until we stop them, folks.