Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Awareness Day

FETAL ALCOHOL SPECTRUM AWARENESS DAY

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, by raising awareness one moment at a time, we can minimize the harm that drinking during pregnancy causes our most vulnerable population--our children.

In February of 1999, a small group of parents, raising children afflicted with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, set out to change the world. That small group started an ``online support group'' which quickly became a worldwide grassroots movement to observe September 9 as International Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders Awareness Day. Former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle was instrumental in having the Senate take notice of this important issue.

This year for the seventh consecutive year, communities across the Nation are pausing at the hour of 9:09 a.m. to acknowledge this day.

Events are occurring in cities and towns not just across the country, but around the world--from Chilliwack, British Columbia to Cape Town, South Africa to Madagascar--families are joining together today to raise awareness of fetal alcohol syndrome disorders or FASD.

My State of Alaska will observe this day with solemn events in Anchorage, Juneau, Kenai, and Fairbanks.

FASD is an umbrella term that describes a range of physical and mental birth defects that can occur in a fetus when a pregnant woman drinks alcohol. It is a leading cause of nonhereditary mental retardation in the U.S. Many children affected by maternal drinking during pregnancy have irreversible conditions--including severe brain damage--that cause permanent, lifelong disability.

FASD is 100 percent preventable. Prevention merely requires a woman to abstain from alcohol during pregnancy.

Yet every year in America, an estimated one in every 100 babies born are born with FASD--that's 40,000 infants. FASD affects more children than Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, spina bifida and muscular dystrophy combined.

The cost of FASD is high--more than $3 billion each year in direct health care costs, and many times that amount in lost human potential. Lifetime health costs for an individual living with FASD averages $860,000.

The indirect financial and social costs to the Nation are even greater--including the cost of incarceration, specialized health care, education, foster care, job training and general support services.

All in all, the direct and indirect economic costs of FASD in the U.S. are estimated to be $5.4 billion.

You can find FASD in every community in America--native, non-native, rich, poor--it doesn't discriminate. That is why, last February, the U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona again issued another advisory to pregnant women, or women who plan to become pregnant, to completely abstain from all alcohol use.

In Alaska, I am troubled to report that we have the highest rate of FASD in the Nation. Approximately 163 Alaskan babies are born each year affected by maternal alcohol use during pregnancy. Among our native communities, the rate of FASD is 15 times higher than non-Native areas in the state.

And again, FASD is 100 percent preventable. We can save so many children and families so much heartache simply by increasing people's awareness of what FASD is and how we can prevent it. In fact, prevention of FASD is seven times more cost effective than treating the disorder.

That is why Senator Tim Johnson and I--and several others from both sides of the aisle--will soon be introducing legislation to direct more resources toward this terrible problem. The ``Advancing FASD Research, Prevention, and Services Act'' will--develop and implement targeted state and community-based outreach programs; improve coordination among Federal agencies involved in FASD treatment and research by establishing stronger communication with these programs, and improve support services for families and strengthen educational outreach efforts to doctors, teachers, judges and others whose work puts them in contact with people with FASD.

Forty-thousand American children a year are born with FASD. Our investment today in prevention, treatment and research will save countless in future health costs of this devastating but completely preventable disorder. I ask my colleagues to support the Advancing FASD, Research, Prevention and Services Act.

On Fetal Alcohol Awareness Day, we remember all innocent babies inflicted with this disorder and imagine the potential that they could have been but for the damage done by alcohol.

I hope that we will continue to pause in the ninth hour of the ninth day each September until fetal alcohol spectrum disorders are eradicated.

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