Annual Birth Sex Odds (1971-2021) in the Vicinity of Military Training Grounds in Germany: Interrupted Time Series Analysis View PDF

^*Hagen Scherb
Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen, German Research Center For Environmental Health, Institute Of Computational Biology, Germany

^*Corresponding Author:

Hagen Scherb
Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen, German Research Center For Environmental Health, Institute Of Computational Biology, Germany
Email:hagen.scherb@gmail.com

Published on: 2023-05-08

Abstract

Background: Increases in human birth sex odds have been documented after the atomic bomb tests, after Chernobyl, and in the vicinity of nuclear facilities. Little attention has been paid to contaminations in the vicinity of training areas possibly affecting the health of women and their offspring. In the military training grounds Bergen and Munster in Germany, projectiles containing depleted uranium were fired in the summer of 1983.
Method: Counts of annual live births by gender for five municipalities near the military areas were obtained from the Lower Saxony State Office for Statistics. Time trend analyses employing logistic regression for male proportions and Poisson regression for gender-specific absolute birth counts were carried out. Possible level shifts in the sex odds and the birth count from 1984 onward were estimated and tested.
Results: The sex odds trend from 1971 to 2021 revealed a significant jump in 1984 with a sex odds ratio (SOR) of 1.097, 95% CI (1.038, 1.159), and p-value 0.0010. The rest of Lower Saxony, by which the regression was adjusted as a negative control, showed no corresponding change point effect from 1984 onwards: sex odds ratio (SOR) 0.999, (0.995, 1.004), p-value 0.7436.
Conclusion: This observation corroborates previous findings of increased sex odds after the atmospheric nuclear tests, after the Chernobyl accident, and near nuclear facilities, especially after distinct radiological events.

Keywords

Depleted Uranium; Lethal Sex-Linked Mutation; Radiation-Induced Genetic Effect

Introduction

Ionizing radiation may induce cancer and a great variety of detrimental genetic effects [1-5]. The human sex odds at birth were elevated in affected European countries after the atomic bomb tests and after Chernobyl [6, 7], and were associated with distance from nuclear facilities in Austria, Germany, France, and Switzerland [8- 10]. Since nutrition is a key driver in women’s health [11], detrimental reproductive effects including distorted birth sex ratios [12, 13] may be induced by food and by ground or tap water radiologically contaminated with depleted uranium. “Depleted uranium (DU) is generally considered an emerging pollutant, first extensively introduced into the environment in the early nineties in Iraq, during the military operation called “Desert Storm”. DU has been hypothesized to represent a hazardous element both for soldiers exposed as well as for the inhabitants of the polluted areas in the war zones” [14]. In this context, little attention has been paid to contaminations in the vicinity of military training grounds. The usage of projectiles containing depleted uranium near Bergen and Munster in Germany in the summer of 1983 [15] provides an opportunity to study the secular birth sex ratio trend at the municipality level during 51 years from 1971 to 2021 before and after this event in 1983. A similar case report has been provided previously demonstrating an increased birth sex ratio within 5 km of the nuclear power plant Leibstadt in Switzerland after an INES-2 incident in 2010 [16].