Iraq Study Finds Rising Incidence of Babies Born with Down's Syndrome

An Iraqi doctor Tariq Al- Hilli has published a report entitled "Depleted uranium and Down's syndrome in offspring of mothers younger than 35-years old". In it Al-Hilli claims that among the 30 sampled patients with Down's syndrome, 17 of them, or 56.6 percent, were infants of mothers under the age of 35. The result indicated there was no significant statistical association between advanced maternal age and birth of babies with the congenital disorder.

This is the latest in a long series of reports that have pointed to an increase in birth deformities in Iraq. There has never been any international research to establish the causes and scale of these defects although Iraqi doctors have claimed them to be on an alarming scale. In the report Al-Hilli claims that there is an increasing incidence of congenital malformations among those children who live in areas exposed to environmental contamination by radioactive materials like depleted uranium.

Dr Al-Hilli said the sample was randomly selected from those patients who went to the Saddam Central Teaching Hospital during January 1 to July 31, 2000. The study also included another 40 age-and-sex-matched children who had no Down's syndrome as control cases, he said. Down's syndrome, also called trisomy 21, is caused by the presence of an third chromosome.