[Vision2020] Leading Cause Of Mental Retardation? Alcohol!

[Ted Moffett]

Andreas et. al.

You may be right that the CDC is "scaremongering."  This seems to be quite
in vogue in our current federal government.

And actually, even according to the "hysterical" sources I quoted, my
subject heading should have indicated that alcohol is one of the leading
causes of mental retardation among known causes, which is a fraction of
total cases of identified mental retardation.

However, the site you referenced for the "non-hysterical" view of FAS makes
some recommendations for alcohol consumption for pregnant women that are not
so radically different than the CDC site I quoted.  See the quotes from this
site below.

Also, consider that FAS may not be an all or nothing problem, as the site
you referenced indicates in the quote I placed from that site at the bottom
here in my reply.  A continuum of damage might be inflicted on a fetus from
subtle or significant harm of one sort or another due to alcohol consumption
(an IQ lowered from 130 to 110, for example), that may not ever be detected
as due to alcohol consumption in pregnancy, and thus identified as FAS, all
the way to full blown undeniable FAS.  These more hard to identify negative
impacts from alcohol consumption in pregnancy would not be revealed in the
NIH prevalence data you reference.

Moderate drinking is often defined as "one drink per day," an amount that
would be considered laughable for a serious drinker, or most college
students on a weekend drinking binge.  Consider the college age female who
is not taking full precautions against pregnancy, who is going on drinking
binges, a rather popular activity these days, slamming 5-10 shots of hard
liquor in one evening on the weekends, who then finds out she is two weeks
pregnant.  I think any health professional would admit this level of alcohol
consumption in one night can place a fetus at risk.

>From the "non-hysterical" site you referenced:

http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/FAS/FAS.html

Negative effects appear to be related to relatively higher levels of
consumption per occasion, and hence, to higher blood alcohol content levels.
Thus, it appears to be very important never to consume more than one drink
in any one day while pregnant.
8<http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/FAS/FAS.html#Note8>

And again:

*The guidelines of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists
recommend that "women should be careful about alcohol consumption in
pregnancy and limit this to no more than one standard drink per day."
**9*<http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/FAS/FAS.html#Note9>
* These conclusions appear consistent with the research findings of the
Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, a major science
body in the U.S. **10*<http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/FAS/FAS.html#Note10>


And again:

*The Harvard Women's Health Watch advises pregnant women that "having more
than one alcoholic drink per day puts the fetus at risk for various defects
and disabilities." **13*<http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/FAS/FAS.html#Note13>
* Thus, it suggests that expectant women should limit themselves to one
drink per day. The health publication emphasizes that one drink is 12 ounces
of beer, five ounces of wine, or 1.5 ounces of spirits or liquor.*
And yet again, with emphasis (contained in this web site's text, not placed
by me):

*But, of course, alcohol consumption might have very subtle or undetectable
undesirable effects on children. Therefore, until more is known for certain,
pregnant women might well be advised to choose the safest option, that of
abstaining during pregnancy.*
*----------*
**
*Some people smoke a pack of Camel straights a day till they are 90, and die
in their sleep of non-tobacco related causes.  Just because there is a group
of alcoholic women who gave birth to "normal" babies does not mean alcohol
consumption does not place the fetus at risk in many cases, a risk factor
that may vary considerably from women to women and fetus to fetus, nor that
those babies born of the alcoholic women did not in fact have some sort of
negative impact from their mothers alcohol consumption, impacts not
identified as FAS.*
**
*I agree that the suggestion that one drink can induce full blown FAS is
hysteria, and that one drink a day appears to be a safe amount, an amount
many drinkers will not stop at!*
**
*Ted Moffett*

On 1/30/06, Andreas Schou <ophite at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> On 1/30/06, Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Wayne, et. al.
> >
> > Alcohol has another rather ugly negative health effect apart from
> > cancer, a serious issue that seems to be marginalized for various reasons:
> >
> > Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.
> >
> > http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/fas/
> >
> > Considering the encouragement of alcohol use in Moscow (and just about
> > everywhere, but especially in a college town, of course) as a drug to
> > facilitate the social aspects of sexual partnering, even by those in stable
> > relationships, ponder this statement from the CDC website above:
> >
> > When a pregnant woman drinks alcohol, so does her unborn baby.  There is
> > no known safe amount of alcohol to drink while pregnant and there also does
> > not appear to be a safe time to drink during pregnancy either.  Therefore,
> > it is recommended that women abstain from drinking alcohol at any time
> > during pregnancy.  Women who are sexually active and do not use effective
> > birth control should also refrain from drinking because they could become
> > pregnant and not know for several weeks or more
> >
>
> The CDC is scaremongering, while NOFAS appears to be lying outright.
>
> There is, in fact, no evidence that fetal alcohol syndrome occurs after
> moderate drinking during pregnancy; it is, in fact, rare even in the
> children of alcoholics. Prevalence in the United States varies between .10
> per thousand live births (one in ten thousand) and 3.0 per thousand (one
> in three hundred). The current prevalence of alcoholism predicts 4.1million alcoholic women, or close to thirty-four per thousand. FAS
> associated with moderate drinking would predict a number of births with FAS
> of over thirty-four per thousand, assuming a relatively flat distribution of
> alcoholic women of childbearing age*.
>
> For more (non-hysterical) information on fetal alcohol syndrome, you can
> find a relatively well-annotated survey of the information on FAS from this:
>
> http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/FAS/FAS.html
>
> Alternatively, you can pull the same numbers I did from NIH's prevalence
> studies. Or you can take a pragmatic historical view: if FAS were tied to
> moderate alcohol consumption, you would expect societies with high
> individual alcohol consumption -- the ancient Egyptians, Britain throughout
> the 1800s -- to have high levels of mental retardation due to FAS. This
> appears not to be the case.
>
> -- ACS
>
> * This may be a bad assumption. Actually, I assume that the distribution
> is *not*, in fact, flat ... but the point is that, if severe alcoholism were
> strictly tied to FAS, you would expect to see every alcoholic mother giving
> birth to children with FAS, as well as mothers who consumed moderately
> during pregnancy. This is not, in fact, the case.
>
>
>
>
>
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