Abstract
A prospective study of virus diseases occurring in pregnant women from 1957 to 1964 and a concurrent survey of hospital records revealed a fourfold increase in the number of cases of congenital cataracts following the widespread epidemic of 1964, as compared to the incidence in previous years in which no epidemic of rubella occurred. This increase was related to a greater number of cases of rubella in pregnant women and to a higher rate of occurrence of cataracts among the offspring of those mothers affected within the first eight weeks of gestation. The increased risk that congenital cataracts would occur suggests that there may have been an alteration in the capacity of the rubella virus in 1964 to injure human fetal lens tissue. Preliminary findings on the occurrence of congenital heart disease suggest that the incidence of other major defects in offspring of women who contracted rubella during pregnancy in a year in which a severe epidemic occurred may also rise.
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