Health authorities are investigating a cluster of birth defects affecting an alarming number of babies born in a small northern New South Wales community.
Gastroschisis is a condition where a baby’s intestines and organs grow outside the body through a hole in the abdominal wall.
The global incidence of gastroschisis is one in 5,000, but data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics puts the incidence for NSW’s Northern Rivers region at one in 950 births.
In the past three years there have been at least seven babies born with the defect around the community of Wadeville.
NSW Health declined to be interviewed by ABC1’s 7:30 Queensland, but it is currently investigating a possible gastroschisis cluster in the Northern Rivers and an expert panel is expected to meet this month.
Wadeville resident Angela Summers is one mum who has first-hand knowledge of the condition. Her second child, Indi Black Summers, was born with Gastroschisis.
“I felt really alone being at a hospital no one knew nothing. It was hard,” she said.
But a small article in the local newspaper about Indi set off a staggering chain of events.
Parents Jacqui McSkimming and her partner Matt Ostilla saw the article after their son Olive was also born with Gastroschisis.
The couple from Barkers Vale, just five minutes drive from Wadeville, discovered their son had the condition 36 hours before he was born.
“It was just a chaos, a mess having so much stuff hanging outside of him; actually I don’t know how the surgeon held him up without it all falling on the ground,” Mr Ostilla said.
Until Ms Summers and Ms McSkimming met they had no idea how similar their experiences were.
Nor did they realise there were many more families from the area whose babies had been born with the same birth defect in the past three years.
“Six other babies with gastroschisis all at once, all in the Mater Mothers,” Ms Summers said.
Kellie Thomas and her partner Troy Rose from Goonellabah were one of the six families. Their third child Mia was born with an acute case of Gastroschisis.
“It was hard, it was really hard to sit there and watch Mia, it was hard to watch her vomiting every two hours,” Ms Thomas said.
“Her bowel turned right around and pushed her appendix up on the other side. It was horrible just watching her and not being able to do anything to help her.”
Risk factors
Ms Thomas says she did not have any of the known risk factors associated with having a baby born with Gastroschisis, such as amphetamine and cannabis use, drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, or being under the age of 20.
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Pesticide link
In 2010, the Environmental Defenders Office and the National Toxins Network investigated which pesticides and herbicides were being sprayed by farmers in the Northern Rivers.
“On that list it’s incredible to find that there are seven pesticides that are actually banned in the European Union,” Jo Immig, an environmental scientist and spokesperson for the National Toxins Network said.
One of those chemicals is Atrazine, a herbicide widely used in Australia to control weeds in a variety of crops.
In 2010, researchers at the University of Washington released a landmark study analysing almost 20 years of medical and agricultural data for Eastern Washington.
It linked the rising rate of gastroschisis to exposure to Atrazine-contaminated waters, particularly for women who conceived in spring – the peak spraying time.
Another 2010 study from the University of California found one in 10 male frogs exposed to Atrazine turned into females, while 75 per cent were rendered sterile.
Studies done by the manufacturer of Atrazine did not come to the same conclusions.
The Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) is the regulator of pesticides.
“The APVMA has reviewed in detail scientific studies that suggest possible links between Atrazine and gastroschisis and Atrazine and Hermaphrodism in frogs. While the studies are interesting, they do not satisfy internationally accepted standards of scientific rigour relevance and reliability, which regulators rely upon to make decisions,” the APVMA said in a statement.
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From Discovery News,
Emily Sohm
Lake Slime loaded with pollutants
Pesticides, plasticizers, pharmaceuticals and other hormone-disrupting chemicals soak into the slime that coats rocks at the bottom of lakes and streams, found a new study. Fish and aquatic insects then feed on those contaminated slimes, also known as biofilms.
By documenting biofilms as covert hiding places for toxic chemicals, the study offers the potential for aquatic slimes to help remove pollution from wastewater effluents. For now, the findings also raise new concerns about how the chemicals in our drugs and personal care products work their way through food chains.
“The compounds we produce don’t just go away,” said Jeff Writer, an environmental engineer with the United States Geological Survey in Boulder, Colo. “We’re a highly medicated society, we use a lot of compounds and we see them no matter where we look. It’s important to understand where they go and where they end up.”
Concern has been building for years about the environmental effects of endocrine disrupters, a class of chemicals that can interrupt the hormonal systems of both people and animals that are exposed to them. These chemicals, which include hormones from birth control pills and ingredients of many plastics, end up in the discharge that flows out of wastewater treatment plants all over the developed world.
In streams on the receiving end of wastewater treatment plants, between 25 and 75 percent of the water consists of discharged effluents. And previous research suggests that chemical-filled effluents can cause major problems for wildlife. Studies have found high rates of feminization in fish that live downstream from treatment plants. Ovarian tissue has even shown up in the testes of some of male fish.
Earlier studies have looked for evidence of endocrine disruptors in sediments and in the water column, …
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Endocrine-disrupting chemicals and obesity development in humans: A review. Studies investigating prenatal exposure indicate that exposure in utero may cause permanent physiological changes predisposing an individual to later weight gain. Some endocrine disruptors may play a role in the obesity epidemic, in addition to the more commonly-accepted contributors.
Endocrine disruptors in the etiology of type 2 diabetes mellitus: Review in Nature, concluding that: “Although more experimental work is necessary, evidence already exists to consider exposure to EDCs as a risk factor in the etiology of type 2 diabetes mellitus and other diseases related to insulin resistance.”
We have posted other highlights from last month (there were two exceptionally strong news items which communications specialists may wish to note) here:
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Potential New Predictor of Male Reproductive Potential Identified
ScienceDaily (May 11, 2011) — The distance between a man’s scrotum and anus may indicate his ability to reproduce, report researchers from Baylor College of Medicine in the journal PLoS ONE.
“We have observed in animal studies that anogenital distance (the distance between the scrotum and anus) is an important measure for genital development and may be shorter in males with abnormal testicular development and function,” said Dr. Michael Eisenberg, a male reproductive medicine and surgery fellow in the Scott Department of Urology at BCM and lead author on the study. “We initiated a clinical study to determine if the distance varied between infertile men and fertile adult men. If so, this could help us develop a novel method to evaluate patients with impaired reproductive potential.”
Eisenberg and his research team measured the anogenital distance and penile length of 117 infertile men and 56 fertile men from an andrology clinic.
They found that the infertile men possessed a significantly shorter anogenital distance and penile length when compared with the fertile men, though they also note the need for further studies to compare anogenital distance measurement techniques and assess their accuracy and reproducibility.
“There are two main implications of this study — first, this could represent a non-invasive way to test testicular function and reproductive potential in adult men and second, it suggests that gestational exposures and development may impact adult testicular function.”
Others who contributed to the study include Dr. Larry Lipshultz, chief of male reproductive medicine and surgery and professor of urology; Dr. Rustin Chanc Walters, a clinical postdoctoral fellow of urology; and Dr. Ross Krasnow, a urology resident, all of BCM and Dr. Michael Hsieh, an assistant professor or urology from the Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, Calif.
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Gearing up for bumper animal health conference
14 May, 2011 03:00 AM
FROM preventing dog bites to the hidden dangers of lizard poisoning – more than 700 vets will talk everything animals at the Southern Hemisphere’s largest animal health conference in Adelaide this week (15-20 May).
The Australian Veterinary Association (AVA) Annual Conference will bring veterinarians together from throughout Australia and abroad, for a week of presentations on the health, behaviour and welfare of Australian pets, exotics (birds and reptiles), wildlife, horses and livestock.
With seven major international speakers, 94 exhibitors and over 200 sessions at the Adelaide Convention Centre in the coming days, this is the largest conference of its kind in the southern hemisphere.
Conference highlights will include:
# Dog bite expert panel: Four Australian and international animal behaviour experts discuss the most up-to-date research on dog behaviour and dog bite prevention.
# Agrichemical threat: Dr Matt Landos talks about the need for government intervention to deal with the ticking chemical time bomb that threatens Australian people and animals.
# Top tips for cat lovers: International expert Dr Jacqui Neilson will give her top behavioural tips to deal with troublesome moggies.
# New and emerging cattle diseases: Cattle expert Dr Rob Bonanno talks about new diseases threatening Australia’s herds following the record wet weather.
# Update on a Hendra virus vaccination: Dr Deborah Middleton will talk about her work on the development of a horse vaccination against this deadly virus, as we enter the Hendra infection season.
# Things you can catch from your pet lizard: Dr Brendan Carmel and Dr Robert Johnson will talk about the growing problem of pet poisoning caused by Salmonellosis.
Dr Barry Smyth, President of the Australian Veterinary Association said: “Veterinarians play vital roles in human health and welfare through disease control, food safety, scientific research, biosecurity, quarantine, agriculture, and the positive power of pets in the lives of Australians, and this is reflected in this year’s conference.
“The impressive conference program showcases the amazing breadth of work done by Australia’s veterinarians – from rural vets looking after our food animals, to those taking care of our precious companions,” said Dr Smyth.
Further information about the AVA Annual Conference is available online at: www.ava.com.au/conference.
