People Living Near Toxic Dumps Show Higher Rate of Birth Defects

Women living near toxic waste sites are slightly more likely to have children with birth defects, but more research is needed to determine if the dumps are to blame, a study published Monday said.

Researchers from Yale University and the New York Health Department reviewed a total of 27,115 births in 20 New York counties for the study in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

In New York state, 30 infants per 1,000 are born with birth defects. The rate rose slightly to 34 infants per 1,000 when the researchers looked at births to mothers living within a mile of a chemical dump, the study said.

The rate was even higher--49 babies per 1,000 births--for mothers living near 90 sites considered to have the highest risk.

The study took into account differences in the frequency of birth defects attributable to age, race and educational level.

But it did not consider other factors possibly related to birth defects, including alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking, said one of the authors, Michael B. Bracken, professor of epidemiology and public health at the Yale School of Medicine.

An outside expert cautioned that the neighbors of toxic waste sites tend to be poor people with the poorest diets and hygiene.

“The question is, ‘Which one is doing them in?’ They are living in a kind of environmental poison soup,” said Norman W. Klein, director of the Center for Environmental Health at the University of Connecticut.