David J Wilson, John Freeman and Phyll Hardie respond to an article by Zoe Williams
Zoe Williams could not be more wrong (Bilge, booze and misogyny: why I’m outraged by a new idea to police pregnant women, 18 September): drinking in pregnancy is everyone’s concern. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) consultation document provided compelling arguments explaining why society should be concerned about foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD).
For example, a systematic review and meta-analysis in the Lancet in 2017 revealed that the UK was among the five countries with the highest (41.3%) estimated prevalence of alcohol use during pregnancy. According to Nice, this results in an annual societal cost of over £2bn to support victims of FASD. Williams’ article simply perpetuates the debate about how much alcohol causes birth defects, when the advice should always be based on the argument that “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”.
David J Wilson
Professor of medical education, Cardiff University School of Medicine
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