Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Smith Introduces House Resolution on Spina Bifida

October Is Spina Bifida Awareness Month; Thousands of Americans Live with Permanent Disabling Birth Defect

Oct 02,2010 - Washington - Spina bifida, a birth defect that threatens millions of Americans, is the focus of a House resolution, H. Res. 1664, introduced this week aimed at both raising public awareness of the disease and urging the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to launch a federal effort to improve access to health care facilities for individuals with disabilities.
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Breathe carefully: air emissions of benzene may cause birth defects

Breathe carefully: air emissions of benzene may cause birth defects.
Environmental Health News

Pregnant women living in Texas neighborhoods with higher air levels of benzene – a pollutant often released from oil refineries and traffic exhaust – are more likely to have babies with neural tube defects. Women living in the areas with the highest benzene levels had a two times greater risk for their children to be born with spina bifida. This study is the first to examine the link between environmental levels of benzene and neural tube defects in newborns and adds to the growing body of evidence linking prenatal air pollution exposures to harmful effects on the developing fetus.
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