Research of the effects of war contaminants and mechanisms that have culminated in such high rates of birth defects in Fallujah

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Four Polygamous Families with Congenital Birth Defects from Fallujah, Iraq

By International Journal of Environmental Research of Public Health 2010

Studies in another war contaminant, Agent Orange, also find parental exposure to be associated with an increased risk of birth defects in the offspring [6]

Exposure to teratogens of either father or mothers are potentially effective to induce birth defects at the epigenetic as well as the genetic level. In the cases we report here, the pattern of presentation does not exclude the contribution of either parent: the epigenetic changes are likely to behave as stochastic and not strictly deterministic events, and lack of effects in one of the two families branch with the same father cannot exclude his contribution to the occurrence of birth defects in the other family branch.