No clustering has been foundbut a link seems to exist with population density

Papers p 905

A few years ago public concern was raised in England by the appearance of apparent clusters of cases of anophthalmia and microphthalmia.1 The pesticide benomyl, and later on its derivative carbendazim, was suspected to be the cause of the alleged clustering. In response to a press campaign the government in 1993 commissioned further research, although without clearly indicating the direction for the investigations. In this week's issue Dolk et al publish the results of that research (p 905).2 Although they did not confirm clustering, their results raise further, interesting, questions.

Microphthalmia is a general term used to describe a broad range of improperly developed, small eyes in newborn children. One end of the range is marked by babies with complete absence of eyes—that is, anophthalmia—whereas at the other end are cases that are rather arbitrarily …