Herbicides connected to birth defects - Bulletins: news about pregnancy, birth, and parenting - Brief Article

OVER THE LAST30 YEARS. THE LINK between herbicides and disease has been the subject of many studies. One of the most recent, published in the July 2003 edition of Environmental Health Perspectives, demonstrates a connection between birth defects and herbicide use in wheat-growing areas of the Midwest.

Researchers analyzed birth outcomes between 1995 and 1997 in 147 low-wheat and high-wheat agricultural counties in Minnesota, Montana, and North and South Dakota. Areas where larger acreages were devoted to wheat and where use of chlorophenoxy herbicides was higher, experienced a significantly greater percentage of circulatory, respiratory, musculoskeletal, and skin malformations and anomalies. High-wheat areas also showed a higher rate of male infant deaths from congenital anomalies. In addition, infants conceived during the time of greatest herbicide use--from April through June--were more likely to have respiratory and circulatory (excluding heart) malformations.

The researchers concluded that "although the results from the study should be viewed with caution, the consistency of these results with other studies points to a potentially hazardous scenario in terms of specific excess birth defects."

Dina M. Schreinemachers, "Birth Malformations and Other Adverse Perinatal Outcomes in Four US Wheat-Producing States," Environmental Health Perspectives 111, no. 9 (July 2003): 1259.

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