Vietnam service and the risk of congenital anomalies. A case-control study.

Infants with anomalies diagnosed at, or shortly after, birth were individually matched to control infants born without an anomaly, in the same hospital, to a mother of similar age, and at about the same date. The fathers in 8517 such case-control pairs were identified, and compared with a list of men who served in the Australian Army between 1962 and 1972 - the period of Australian involvement in Vietnam. Fathers identified as having served in the Army during this period were then classified according to whether or not they had served in Vietnam. One hundred and twenty-seven fathers of infants who were born with anomalies and 123 fathers of control infants were Vietnam veterans. The risk of a Vietnam veteran fathering a child with an anomaly, compared with that of a non-veteran, was estimated at 1.02, with 95% confidence limits of 0.78 to 1.32. There was no evidence that Army service in Vietnam increases the risk of fathering children with anomalies diagnosed at birth.