Early-life Environmental Exposure and Disease by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789811537974
Publisher: Springer Singapore

2.7 Environmental Exposure and Child Health and Developmental Effects

The timing of the exposure may determine the toxicity of environmental chemicals to some degree. Thalidomide, as one of the most infamous teratogens, was used to treat nausea in pregnant women in the 1950s and 1960s, leading to limb defects in thousands of children [84]. Notably, exposure between 21 and 36 days after conception was necessary to cause these birth defects, demonstrating the presence of limb defects depended on the timing of thalidomide use. Another example was diethylstilbestrol (DES), a pharmaceutical given to women from the 1940s–1970s to prevent spontaneous abortion. The offspring of women who were prescribed DES in the first half of their pregnancy had increased risk of developing vaginal or cervical clear cell adenocarcinoma [85], as well as reproductive problems and some cancers [86, 87]. The question is how could these compounds be available on the market, and the answer might be that the compounds’ risk was assessed in rodents but did not respond clearly with adverse outcome upon exposure to thalidomide [84], whereas later studies demonstrated for DES in both rodents and humans [85].

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