Texas Department of State Health Services. Texas Birth Defect Epidemiology and Surveillance Branch.

In April 1991, three babies with anencephaly were born in a Brownsville, Texas, hospital within 36 hours. The babies died soon after birth. When these cases occurred in Cameron County, little was known about what causes NTDs like anencephaly. It was known that, in the United States, NTDs are most common among Hispanics and least common in African Americans. The birth defects are also more common in families with low incomes. Community members thought the birth defect problems could be related to pollution from pesticide use and assembly plant industries along the Mexico/U.S. border. Doctors in the Texas Department of Health (today’s Texas Department of State Health Services [DSHS]) asked epidemiologists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, to help them look into the problem.

In response to this cluster and the need for better data, and in recognition of the enormous resources routinely put forth by DSHS in the investigation of birth defect clusters, the Texas State Legislature passed the Texas Birth Defects Act in 1993. Out of this statute, the Texas Birth Defects Registry was created to actively identify children born with birth defects. At about the same time, the Texas Neural Tube Defects Project (TNTDP) was initiated by TDH and collaborators. This seven-year study, funded in large part by the CDC, focused on surveillance, research and recurrence prevention in Texas counties along the border with Mexico. Although the TNTDP wrapped up data collection in 2000, scientific research into the possible causes of NTDs continues to be published by the Texas Department of State Health Services.

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