The Stigma of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders Explained

What if we held alcohol companies accountable in the same way we did nicotine and opioid manufacturers?

I’ve spent the week at FASD United’s Impact Week; we discussed why, after more than 50 years of knowing the impact of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD), so few people are diagnosed. How has autism risen to the level of recognition it has, despite it being about half as prevalent? Further, while autism is half as prevalent, it is funded 10 times more than FASDs. That is, FASDs affect about 5% of the population, on the low end, and funding from the government to address it is at $12.2M per year. Autism Spectrum Disorder, on the other hand, affects about 2.7% of the population, and government funding to address it is at $120M per year. 

I think it’s safe to say that we want all people, and especially children, to be healthy. So why does autism, a mostly genetic disorder, get so much more attention than FASDs, which are caused pretty much by prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE)?

Genetics or PAE: either way, the baby has no choice in the outcome. So what’s the difference?

Let’s take away the stigma that says the mother drinking during pregnancy CAUSED this. It’s easy to dismiss this thinking for two reasons: 1) We can safely say we all want children to be healthy; 2) While 1 in 7 pregnant women drink, not all of those babies are diagnosed with FASDs. In fact, of the offspring of those pregnant women who drink, only 33% or about 1 in 20 will have an FASD, so there’s still something else happening, possibly genetics. 

So the difference is alcohol: alcohol manufacturers, the alcohol industry, alcohol lobbyists. There are 302 lobbyists from the alcohol industry in Washington, DC. That’s more than 1 lobbyist for every 2 members of Congress. 

So, yeah, alcohol plays a part in FASDs — from PAE to preventing dissemination of information. There’s certainly no quid pro quo for lobbyists spreading the wealth. Lobbyists aren’t telling government officials that they can’t support FASD services or programming if they want the perks or funding from the lobbyists. Still, there is a fear that if alcohol CAUSES the problem, NO ALCOHOL cures the problem. Holding the alcohol industry accountable would be blaming the alcohol manufacturers for all cases of FASDs. 

This, then, is a stigma problem. If we stop acting as though pregnant women drinking alcohol directly correlates to offspring developing FASDs — because it doesn’t really, if 1 in 7 pregnant woman drinks but only 33% of those who do so, 1 in 20, has a baby with an FASD — more people could talk about FASDs, and we could prevent it more often. 

https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/lobbying?cycle=2024&ind=N02