France has launched a nationwide inquiry into incidents of babies being born with either missing or malformed arms after abnormal rates of birth defects in several regions have sparked a public health scare. Francois Bourdillon, head of the Public Health France agency, confirmed for the first time that a national investigation was "under way" and the results would be known in about three months. "Nothing is being hidden from you," he assured listeners to RTL radio. Confidence in the state's handling of the issue took a blow on Monday night when health authorities reported an additional 11 cases in the Ain area near the Swiss border between 2000 and 2014 which had not previously been made public. A relatively small number of cases have been detected so far in total - about 25 over the past 15 years in the regions of Brittany, Loire-Atlantique and Ain - but the defects have caused public alarm and have been widely reported by the French media. Officials had already called the number of cases in Brittany and the Loire-Atlantique areas, on France's west coast, statistically "excessive" and Health Minister Agnes Buzyn has vowed to investigate further. "We don't want to exclude anything," Ms Buzyn told the BFM television channel. "It's may be something environmental, it's may be what they (pregnant mothers) ate, it's perhaps what they breathed in," she said. So far, no explanation has been found for the deformations despite tests on the mothers to see if they were exposed to common substances. Some environmentalists have claimed pesticides or other chemicals could be to blame - the cases are clustered in rural areas - but there is no evidence at this point to back up the claims. The defects could also be genetic. In the 1950s and 1960s, thousands of babies around the world were born with missing or stunted limbs linked to the use of the drug thalidomide, which was used to treat nausea in pregnant women. It was banned in the 1960s. The incidents of babies born without arms was brought to public attention by a scientist at the Remera public health body, which was created after the thalidomide scandal and is responsible for tracking birth defects. The scientist, Emmanuelle Amar, has been hailed as a whistle blower by ecologists and campaigners, but has been attacked for scare-mongering by others, including fellow scientists.<doc-sep>PARIS (Reuters) - France has launched a nationwide investigation into why some two dozen babies have been born without hands or arms in a handful of rural areas since 2000 after several new cases were reported this week, the health minister said on Wednesday. FILE PHOTO: French Health and Solidarity Minister Agnes Buzyn attends the Congress of the National Union of Communal Centers of Social Action in Nantes, France, October 15, 2018. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe/File Photo A separate investigation has also been opened into reports that calves and possibly chickens have been born without limbs in the same three heavily agricultural areas, an official told Reuters. Public health agency Santé Publique France said it had identified 11 additional cases of babies born with limb defects between 2000 and 2014 in the rural Ain department of eastern France, near the Swiss border, where seven cases were already reported in 2009-14. There have also been malformed births in two departments in western France: four in the Morbihan, Brittany area between 2011 to 2013, and three in neighboring Loire-Atlantique in 2007 and 2008. Ain and Morbihan are several hundred kilometers apart. The reports have raised alarm among the French public that some kind of toxin in food, water or air could be responsible. “I want to know, I think all of France wants to know,” Health Minister Agnès Buzyn told BFM TV. “It could be an environmental factor. Maybe it is due to what these women ate, drank or breathed in.” An initial inquiry in early October found the incidence of limb defects in the affected regions to be no greater than elsewhere in the country, but now the probe has been widened. The new inquiry will be run jointly by the health agency and the sanitation, food and environment agency, Buzyn said. “It is very complicated, we need to investigate the history of families in cases which sometimes date back ten years or more,” she said. First conclusions were due by Jan. 31, and a full report by June. Epidemiologist Emmanuelle Amar, who first revealed the birth defects in Ain, told Reuters the only thing mothers of the affected babies had in common was that they lived in cereal-growing areas amid fields of corn and sunflower. She said most of the defects had been reported between 2009 and 2014 and that since then there had been no new cases. She criticized the health ministry’s initial findings and said congenital defects in the affected regions had been way higher than what would normally be expected. “It is a terrible tragedy for the families,” said Amar. The parents of a girl born without forearms in the village of Guidel, in the Morbihan, said the inquiry should focus on the 2011-13 period, when most of the cases appeared. “No point in looking ahead. Focus on what happened then,” the girl’s father Samuel Bernard told BFM TV earlier this month. Amar said that in the Ain region farmers had also reported calves being born without tails and without flanks. An official at the national food safety agency Anses told Reuters it had now opened a separate investigation into legless calves in the three same regions. Poultry may also be investigated as there are suspicions about chickens being affected. Hospital registries show limb defects occur in 1.7 of every 10,000 births, or about 150 cases per year in France. Birth defects can have multiple causes, including chromosome disorders, drug use or exposure to toxic substances. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, about 10,000 babies worldwide were born with malformed or missing limbs after their mothers received the drug thalidomide to treat morning sickness.<doc-sep>
France has started a probe into why babies in some regions of the country have been born with missing or malformed hands or arms after a report about previously unknown incidents sparked a public health scare. Public Health France reported 11 cases of hand-related defects from 2000 to 2014 in a single region in eastern France in addition to seven cases that were already public there. A total of seven cases between 2007 and 2013 were already public in two regions in western France. French Health Minister Agnes Buzyn confirmed her ministry would launch an investigation into the phenomenon on Wednesday. "I want to know, I think all of France wants to know," Buzyn told BFM TV. "It could be an environmental factor. Maybe it is due to what these women ate, drank or breathed in." Public anxiety French media had reported extensively on the figures, leading to fears that toxins in the local environment in affected regions could be to blame. An inquiry into birth defects in western France in early October found the rate of abnormalities no higher than in the rest of the country. The countrywide rate is about 150 cases per year. A full report into all abnormalities is expected before June 2019. Thousands of babies around the world were born with defects in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Experts eventually blamed thalidomide, a drug used at the time to treat morning sickness. amp/msh (AFP, Reuters) Each evening at 1830 UTC, DW's editors send out a selection of the day's hard news and quality feature journalism. You can sign up to receive it directly here.