5 Birth Defect Cases Tell A Centuries-Old Tale

Based on their baby pictures, five New Mexico children would appear to be related. But instead, these babies were connected only by their birth defects and by sharing a genetic disorder that might have first occurred here about 400 years ago, when Spanish settlers first arrived.

Now, a New Mexico doctor is piecing together the clues of this mysterious and newly detected ailment among a few families, and a local genealogist is trying to find a possible historical connection.

The link here is that all of the families are Hispanic New Mexicans, said Dr. Carol Clericuzio, a pediatric clinical geneticist at the University of New Mexico. Hispanics in other parts of the United States have different genetic backgrounds. Read more at The New York Times...