French authorities are looking into the high number of babies born in the country with upper limb defects.
At least 24 infants were born without arms or hands in certain rural areas since the year 2000.
The French minister for health confirmed that a nationwide investigation would take place after several new cases came to light this week, reports Reuters.
Health officials have so far identified 18 cases in Ain in eastern France between 2000 and 2014, four in Morbihan, Brittany in the north-west between 2011 and 2013 and two in neighbouring Loire-Atlantique in 2007 and 2008.
A separate probe has been launched after it was reported that calves and chickens have also been born without limbs in these same three areas.
It has sparked fears that some kind of environmental or food toxin caused the defects.
“I want to know, I think all of France wants to know,” said Health Minister Agnès Buzyn.
“It could be an environmental factor. Maybe it is due to what these women ate, drank or breathed in.”
Emmanuelle Amar, an epidemiologist, called the phenomenon a “health scandal”.
“These malformations are very rare, but also very specific,” she told The Guardian.
“There is something, some product, that is cutting the limbs at the time the embryo is developing. We must search for it.”
