Full metadata
Title
Fetal risk, federal response: how fetal alcohol syndrome influenced the adoption of alcohol health warning labels
Description
In the fifteen years between the discovery of fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) in 1973 and the passage of alcohol beverage warning labels in 1988, FAS transformed from a medical diagnosis between practitioner and pregnant women to a broader societal risk imbued with political and cultural meaning. I examine how scientific, social, moral, and political narratives dynamically interacted to construct the risk of drinking during pregnancy and the public health response of health warning labels on alcohol. To situate such phenomena I first observe the closest regulatory precedents, the public health responses to thalidomide and cigarettes, which established a federal response to fetal risk. I then examine the history of how the US defined and responded to the social problem of alcoholism, paying particular attention to the role of women in that process. Those chapters inform my discussion of how the US reengaged with alcohol control at the federal level in the last quarter of the twentieth century. In the 1970s, FAS allowed federal agencies to carve out disciplinary authority, but robust public health measures were tempered by uncertainty surrounding issues of bureaucratic authority over labeling, and the mechanism and extent of alcohol’s impact on development. A socially conservative presidency, dramatic budgetary cuts, and increased industry funding reshaped the public health approach to alcoholism in the 1980s. The passage of labeling in 1988 required several conditions: a groundswell of other labeling initiatives that normalized the practice; the classification of other high profile, socially unacceptable alcohol-related behaviors such as drunk driving and youth drinking; and the creation of a dual public health population that faced increased medical, social, and political scrutiny, the pregnant woman and her developing fetus.
Date Created
2016
Contributors
- O'Neil, Erica (Author)
- Maienschein, Jane (Thesis advisor)
- Hurlbut, James (Committee member)
- Ellison, Karin (Committee member)
- Wetmore, Jameson (Committee member)
- Arizona State University (Publisher)
Topical Subject
- Science history
- public health
- public policy
- alcohol policy
- fetal alcohol syndrome
- regulatory science
- Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders--Social aspects--United States.
- Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders
- Warning labels--United States.
- Warning labels
- Consumer protection--Law and legislation--United States.
- Alcoholism--United States.
Resource Type
Extent
iv, 209 pages
Language
eng
Copyright Statement
In Copyright
Primary Member of
Peer-reviewed
No
Open Access
No
Handle
https://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.I.40348
Statement of Responsibility
by Erica O'Neil
Description Source
Retrieved on Feb. 3, 2017
Level of coding
full
Note
thesis
Partial requirement for: Ph.D., Arizona State University, 2016
bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 182-209)
Field of study: Biology
System Created
- 2016-10-12 02:22:51
System Modified
- 2021-08-30 01:21:05
- 3 years 3 months ago
Additional Formats