Researchers at the state health department and the University of Utah are on the hunt for why 1,400 babies are born with birth defects each year.
For 80 percent of the cases, there is no known cause, which means there is no cure.
But lawmakers may have placed the work -- along with the $1.5 million federal funds it draws each year -- in jeopardy.
Last week, nearly all of the Republican members of an appropriations subcommittee that oversees the health department budget recommended cutting both the Birth Defects Network's current budget and $288,000, or nearly all, of its state funding for 2010.
Marcia Feldkamp, the network's director, said Saturday the proposed 80 percent cut would kill the Network and force them to turn down a recently awarded $5 million, five-year federal grant to continue Utah's work as part of the National Birth Defects Prevention Study, along with another $500,000 a year in other federal grants.
"I'm kind of sick about it, actually," said Sen. Allen Christensen, R-North Ogden, co-chairman of the appropriations committee that proposed the cut . He voted for the trim, but hopes its tie to federal money in a tight economy will ultimately salvage the network.
Utah has been tracking birth defects since the 1990s and joined the National Birth Defects Prevention Study in 2002. Three other states were cut from the national study last year but the CDC awarded Utah an extension.
As part
of the study, Utah researchers interview at least 300 mothers of children with birth defects that have no known cause, along with 100 women whose children don't have defects. They seek genetic information, by swabbing the cheeks of the mothers, fathers and babies. And they ask the mothers about environmental exposures during pregnancy like smoking, drinking, or infections.
The latest grant will help Utah researchers continue their work on gastroschisis, a condition on the rise in Utah in which the baby's intestines develop in the amniotic fluid, by studying links with nutrition and smoking. They will also look at Vitamin A and acetaminophen intake and heart defects, the most common birth defect in Utah.
John Carey, a pediatrician who treats children with birth defects and a consultant for the Utah Network, said cutting it would be a "travesty."
"By looking at potential causes, we have an opportunity like never before in the history of the field to decrease the occurrence in our children."
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