Eleven more cases of babies born with missing or malformed arms in France have come to light, the public health authority said Tuesday, adding to a medical phenomenon for which no cause has been found, reports The Japan Times.
The 11 additional cases were identified through hospital records in the Ain area, near the Swiss border, between 2000 and 2014.
Ain is one of the three French “departments” or administrative areas where cases of the upper limb deformities have been registered, along with Brittany on the West coast and Loire-Atlantique, south of Brittany.
Last week, French health minister Agnès Buzyn announced a new investigation into the birth defects of 14 babies born with stunted or missing arms since 2007, half of them in Ain.
In an October 4 report, France’s public health agency said it had found no “common exposure” to substances that could explain the deformities.