Nevada has run out of funding to continue its birth-defects registry, a loss that supporters say couldn’t have come at a worse time. The registry, which was begun three years ago with a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, identifies trends in birth defects across the state in order to help identify and eliminate the causes of such problems. The state applied for a renewal grant from the CDC but failed to follow the requirements, so funding was denied. That was a blow for advocates of the registry, who say it could be crucial tool for, among other things, assessing the human-health effects of the proposed national nuclear-waste dump to be built at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Coleen Morris, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Nevada Medical School, called the demise of the registry a “tragedy for the people of Nevada” and said, “It’s especially important to get the baseline data before nuclear waste is shipped here.”
