By: Texas A&M University, Science Daily
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) set off a firestorm of controversy this month when they suggested that women stop drinking alcohol if they are trying to get pregnant, or could get pregnant. Some people took this advice as the CDC prioritizing hypothetical, yet-to-be-conceived children over real women, which has brought up a number of issues from female autonomy to access to birth control -- but how clear is the science about what causes fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) and related fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD)?