The federal Food and Drug Administration has agreed to review a long-delayed petition to fortify corn masa flour with folic acid, a move advocates say is crucial to preventing devastating birth defects like those seen in an ongoing cluster of cases in Washington state.
Would parents do anything differently if they were told that there were a higher than expected number of cases of babies with birth defects happening around the same time that they were pregnant or just recently had a child?
Average hospital charges for maternity care in California for ART/AI infants were almost fifty percent higher than for naturally conceived infants.
News of a cluster of birth defects in Eastern Washington has all the makings of a true medical horror story: children being born missing parts of their brain and authorities withholding information from scared parents. But there’s another story here.
California researchers confirm what other studies have shown: babies conceived through assisted reproductive technologies (ART) or artificial insemination (AI) and their mothers face higher rates of complications at birth and beyond.
Veteran environmental reporter recommends starting by reporting the basic story first - focusing on what the problem appears to be, and how authorities and businesses are responding.
New colon cancer screening guidelines, a new study on using anti-depressants during pregnancy, new drug tests for sailors and more from our Daily Briefing.
Decision makers in Sacramento have 4 months to settle their differences about the state's chemical regulations
This story takes a closer look at why Latinos have higher rates of birth defects of the brain and spine and what's being done about it. It is the first of three fellowship stories about health disparities in Utah by race/ethnicity and geography.
Dr. Beate Ritz is a professor in the department of epidemiology and environmental health at the UCLA School of Public Health, and in the department of neurology at the UCLA Geffen School of Medicine. Ritz is also a member of the Center for Occupational and Environmental Health, the NIEHS-UCLA-USC Environmental Health Science Center, and a participant in the UCLA EPA-Particle Center effort. She is the co-director of the NIEHS-funded UCLA Center for Gene-Environment Studies in Parkinson's Disease.
