Posted on 02/09/2006 11:03:01 AM PST by SwinneySwitch
HARLINGEN - Tortillas made with contaminated corn may have caused a rash of newborns with missing or rudimentary brains in the Rio Grande Valley in the 1990s, new data suggest.
According to the February issue of the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, researchers now have human studies linking a toxin in corn mold called fumonisin with babies' neural tube defects.
Scientists have been searching more than a decade for answers to the surge of anencephalic babies - babies born without brains or with underdeveloped brains - in the Rio Grande Valley from 1990-92.
There were six such cases in six weeks in Cameron County alone.
Residents and lawyers blamed pollution, and General Motors and other U.S.-owned factories paid $17 million without admitting wrongdoing to settle a lawsuit accusing their border factories of poisoning the air.
But no chemical links to the disease were ever proven, and Texas health officials began suspecting the high concentration of fumonisin in the corn harvest just before the outbreak. Some Texas horses that consumed the corn died from brain disease.
The study detailed in the journal found that pregnant women who ate 300 to 400 tortillas per month during the first trimester had twice the risk of giving birth to babies with the defects as women who ate less than 100 tortillas.
Blood samples indicated that the higher the level of fumonisin, the greater the risk of neural tube defects.
Tortillas are an inexpensive dietary staple along the Texas-Mexico border, and studies say the average young woman eats 110 per month.
"I don't know that we can ever go back and definitely say that it was fumonisin," said Lucina Suarez, director of epidemiology and disease surveillance for the Texas Department of State Health Services. But given this and other research, she said, "It certainly looks that way."
David Miller of Carleton University in Canada, one of the world's experts on the toxin, said there was still no direct human evidence that the toxin caused the birth defects.
He said more study was needed because the mold can still taint the corn supply and so many people's diets are largely made up of corn tortillas.
"We need to know the answer to this question," he said.
Officials with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration declined to discuss the report.
"There seems to be some connection between tortilla consumption and neural tube defects," said Ron Riley, a fumonisin expert from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He said he was waiting for more evidence before blaming tortillas. "With regard to fumonisin, the jury is out."
I disagree completely. It is the fact that the corn wasn't sprayed with a fungicide that it got the disease. Aflatoxin will kill you faster than botulism. We test in the United States because it is so deadly and many people died of food borne illnesses in the past. Many went undetected because they didn't kill overnight but put the toxins in the body. I know medicine and availibility of food has helped raise the life expectancy of Americans but safe food has helped. Just a few years ago how many people got hepatitis at ChiChis? Do you really have any facts or studies that show that organic actually makes you safer or healthier? I know a lot of people who have eaten organic for years and they seem to have the same illnesses as those who don't.
I had a packet of heirloom tomatoes which I scattered here and there on an old compost heap. The plants took over my corner yard and were taller than me (I'm 5'2"). Maybe not killers but it was home to some weird looking spiders!
HA!!!!!!!
There are very high standards of operation of organic farmers versus mass market vegetable farming. Chichis does NOT use organic vegetables and organic famers can't use human sludge for fertiliser. So you know where that hep c came from, it came from human fecal matter from badly washed scallions. Onions and root vegetables are the worst offenders too. If you like to eat out, I'd never eat salad from a restaurant.
I can give you facts about the pesticides used in conventional farming but the proof is eating a tomato grown yourself without any toxic poison and a storebought tomato. If you're serious about investigating organic produce, well we can talk off thread. I grow my own whatever I don't grow, I buy from Pathmark or if I'm desperate, Whole Foods.
One of the principle purposes behind genetic modification is the reduction or even elimination of the need for pesticides.
You may enjoy this article. http://www.fumento.com/biotech/bt-corn.html
It specifically mentions fumonisin.
Depends on the type of GM. Certainly not the way Monsanto is doing with 'terminator seeds' and all the rest.
Corn and soy the two WORST!!!! LOL you're right. I'm wide awake now and enjoying it hehe.
Peace be with you too! :-)
Humble is a nut.
Not a good nut, but a nut!
He wasn't eating birdseed. The dogs (3 of them) were carriers of the fungus which they transmitted to my nephew.
And there are high levels of aflatoxin in our food supply, especially in the UK.
Good question. Screw up or cover-up?
By "extortion money" do you also include money paid to lobbyists by companies like Monsanto?
There's the rub. The corn seed companies are assured of continual purchases.
And in the country it may manifest itself in increasing numbers of cancers.
Hear hear!
I thought I'd never hear about high fructose corn syrup as a potential problem here, but I'm with you on this one. Dollars to donuts the surge in diabetes is caused by this ingredient which, as you probably know, appears in every area of processed foods.
Lucky you. I've grown tomatoes for two years now and they've not come close to reaching those heights!
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