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Binge drinking can cause permanent genetic damage especially to the unborn children of women in the earliest stage of pregnancy, according to a study which shows for the first time how alcohol destroys DNA.
Scientists have identified the precise molecular mechanism leading to the breakdown of the body’s natural defences that protect DNA against damage from excessive alcohol in the bloodstream. They believe the results demonstrate that binge drinking causes a build-up of toxins within the body, causing irreversible genetic damage, which may explain the phenomenon known as foetal-alcohol syndrome, when babies of mothers who drink during pregnancy are born with congenital learning problems. … (Source: Alcohol Reports, 07/08/11)

Important informations on alcohol politics. Issued June 19, 2011 Content:
News From Eurocare Members – News From the EU – News From the WHO – News from across Europe – News From Around the World – Upcoming events – Questions from MEPs

Number 1 / 2011 (Alcohol Reports, 06/13/11)
Alcohol policy is becoming a truly global issue (PDF)
The rise of the total abstinence model. Recommendations regarding alcohol use during pregnancy in Finland and Denmark (PDF)
The effects of missing data when surveying alcohol habits (PDF)
Alcohol-related mishaps on weekends in Reykjavík (PDF)
A window to alcohol problems and politics in Africa. Kettil Bruun Society Meeting in Uganda (PDF)

Number 2 / 2011 (Alcohol Reports, 06/13/11)
In control and out of control. The discourse on intoxication among young Finnish women in the 1980s and 2000s (PDF)
Risky drinking of alcohol in Sweden: A randomized population survey comparing web- and paper-based self-reports (PDF)
The Drinking Habit Survey revival (PDF)

Drinks giant Diageo is to fund alcohol training for 10,000 midwives as part of the Government’s controversial Responsibility Deal. The training programme will be run by the National Organisation for Foetal Alcohol Syndrome UK (Nofas-UK) to encourage midwives to highlight the risks of drinking during pregnancy.
But the news made the headlines amidst criticism that the alcohol industry be funding such initiatives, with reports from the BBC, Guardian, Independent and The Daily Mail.
Don Shenker, Chief Executive of Alcohol Concern, said: „It is deeply worrying that alcohol education is being paid for by the drinks industry, as it is then unaccountable and not necessarily based on evidence or public health guidance.“ Professor Ian Gilmore said, „To really make a difference, education and information must be backed-up by tougher action on the price, availability and marketing of alcohol.“ (Source: Alcohol Policy UK, 06/13/11)

Since the term was coined about 40 years ago, fetal alcohol syndrome has slowly become recognized as a public health issue. Alicestine October reports from South Africa’s Western Cape province, which has the highest reported rate in the world.
“When I was pregnant with my son I drank a lot – mostly on weekends,” says Marion Williams, a 45-year-old mother who lost two of her five children in childbirth.
Williams lives in one of South Africa’s famous wine-growing areas in the Western Cape. She started drinking as a teenager and was taken out of school, she suspects, to work to buy wine for her parents. … (Source: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 2011;89:398–399. doi:10.2471/BLT.11.020611)

The objective of this study was to conduct a systematic review of the literature related to the measurement of the economic impact of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) in different countries and to categorize the available literature. … Existing estimates of the economic impact of FASD demonstrate significant cost implications on the individual, the family and society. However, these estimates vary considerably due to the different methodologies used by different studies. Limitations and gaps in the existing methodologies of calculating the economic costs of FASD are discussed. It is evident that there is an urgent need to develop a comprehensive and sound methodology for calculating the economic impact of FASD to the society. (Source: Alcohol Reports, 04/22/11)

Exposure to alcohol in the womb doesn’t affect all fetuses equally. Why does one woman who drinks alcohol during pregnancy give birth to a child with physical, behavioral or learning problems — known as fetal alcohol spectrum disorder — while another woman who also drinks has a child without these problems? (Source: Google Alcohol News, 03/24/11) machineslikeus.com, 03/24/11 Medical News Today, 03/24/11

Adolescent Offspring Of Women Who Drank Alcohol During First Trimester Of Their Pregnancy Three Times As Likely To Develop Conduct Disorder.
Alcohol use during pregnancy is common and is associated with significant threats to the health and development of exposed offspring. Despite warnings from the Surgeon General to limit alcohol use if pregnant or contemplating pregnancy, a recent survey by the National Birth Defects Prevention Study found that nearly one-third of women drank alcohol at some time during their pregnancy, with one-fourth of the women surveyed having drunk during the first trimester. (Source: Medical News Today, 03/22/11)

Denmark’s health minister has called for free sterilisation for female alcoholics and drug addicts to help prevent birth defects in children. Bertel Haarder is proposing that the DKK 13,000 (EUR 1,744) fee for surgical sterilisation should be waived for certain vulnerable groups.
Haarder claims that drug addicts and alcoholics run a significantly higher risk of giving birth to deformed babies, which would cost society more in the long run than the sterilisation fee. “We’re talking about relatively few women here, so I hope we can find the means to help them,” he said.
Socialist People’s Party spokesperson, Ozlem Cekic, also said it is contradictory that costly abortions are free to addicts on the public health service but sterilisation is not. … (Source: Alcohol Reports, 02/28/11) icenews.is, 02/25/11 Comment: At the end of the 19th and beginning of 20th century the idea of sterilisation was in discussion. The Swiss psychiatrist and leading international specialist on alcoholism, Prof. August Forel (1848-1931), wrote on this subject: Eugenik. In the 1980th there was criticism about this comparing with Nazi-ideology.

A push by the Alcohol Advisory Council (ALAC) for health advisory labels to be placed on alcohol containers warning of the dangers of consuming alcohol while pregnant is a step closer.
A Trans-Tasman food labelling review panel has just released its recommendations calling for suitably worded warning messages about the risks of consuming alcohol while pregnant be mandated on individual containers of alcoholic beverages and at the point of sale for unpackaged alcoholic beverages.
The independent panel, commissioned by the Trans-Tasman Australia and New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council, also recommended generic alcohol warning messages be placed on alcohol labels but only as an element of a comprehensive multifaceted national campaign targeting the public health problems of alcohol in society. (Source: Google Alcohol News, 01/31/11) voxy.co.nz, 01/31/11