A Fatal Link?

School Shooters and Violent Juveniles, Are We Asking the Right Question?

Published in the Idaho State Journal, April 15, 2007

If I were to tell you my dad passed away from lung cancer, what is the first question that comes to your mind? Did he smoke? Now, if I were to tell you a 17 year-old boy walked into an apartment in a small town in a mid-western state and gunned down another 15 year-old boy, what is the first question that comes to mind? I believe the question we should be asking is: Did the mother of this child drink ANY alcohol while she was pregnant with this child?

In 2005, a student killed two people including his grandfather, took his grandfather’s police car to his school in Red Lake, Minnesota and shot and killed 7 students before killing himself. He had the facial and behavioral characteristics of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) and his mother was a heavy drinker. As this tragedy played out, I started to research a another Minnesota school shooting that happened in 1966, when a student with a handgun walked up to another student at my hometown high school, shot and critically wounded this student, then fired six shots into Mr. Wiley, the administrator who told him to give him the gun. Mr. Wiley died eight days later. This shooter, I found out, had abusive alcoholic parents and the behavioral and physical characteristics of FAS. This was before anyone knew or heard of FAS. More research showed Minnesota’s third school shooter at Rocori Cold Springs High School in 2003 displayed characteristics of FAE. And yes, a 17 year old did shoot another 15 year old in a downtown apartment in the city I was living in, and, due to knowing and working with that youth and having to take him home several times, I knew the shooter manifested the characteristic and had a diagnosis of FAS. Are we asking the right question when violent abnormal behavior happens? Do we know the root cause of this violence? I believe we would be amazed if we knew the extent of violence and societal damage brought on by the disabilities associated with FASD. (Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder – a description covering the spectrum from minimal loss of potential to severe brain and physical damage up to and including the death of the fetus or infant)

My interest in learning as much as I could about FASD began when I started working in schools that had a high number of FAS and FAE students. In the past 18 years as a teacher, principal and now, as superintendent, I have experienced the difficulties of teaching children who had the litany of learning disabilities and behavioral problems associated with FASD. I also found out that the FAS, the syndrome is only the tip of the iceberg. Fetal alcohol effects (FAE), without any distinguishing physical features, is equally as disabling, is not easily recognized, and is much more common than the syndrome. Due to having normal physical features, we think the FAE child or adult thinks as a normal child or adult, when in effect, the FAE brain damage does not allow that brain to think normally. In the early 1990’s, my educational experience was then linked to my observation of a family close to me and I began to see how deeply effected I was personally and how little our communities knew of this epidemic. When I speak about FASD as a trainer and consultant, I am amazed at how little is known about this epidemic.

This completely preventable and largely unidentified epidemic is sweeping our community, state, nation and world, leaving in its wake children with lifelong brain damage and adults unable to cope with daily living skills. Our social services system, court systems, police departments, judicial systems, jails, prisons and school systems are struggling with the increasing load caused by this epidemic. The lack of education and unwillingness to confront the epidemic is sure to add more to the already staggering statistics.

Until the 1960’s, the only voices speaking out against alcohol consumption during pregnancies were denounced as moralists. It’s been known since biblical and classical times that women who ingested alcohol during their pregnancies often gave birth to impaired children. In 1500 AD, Sir Francis Bacon, an influential politician noted,"If the mother…drink wine or strong drink immoderately…it endangereth the child to become lunatic, or of imperfect memory.” It wasn’t until the late 1960’s that research in France began to correlate brain damage to alcohol consumption during fetal development. Now, almost 40 years later, research has clearly established the link of drinking alcohol during a pregnancy to brain damage and other physical disabilities and deformities.

Did you know?

-Alcohol is a teratogen defined as any chemical, substance, or exposure that may cause birth defects to the developing fetus. (thalidomide, a sedative used in the 1960’s is a teratogen which caused thousands of deformed children before being banned)

-Alcohol, as a teratogen, damages the fetal development of the brain and causes physical deformities, while cocaine and meth does not.

-It is a felony to provide cocaine to a minor (developing fetus) while it is a misdemeanor to provide alcohol to a minor (developing fetus)
Deficiencies of a cocaine and meth baby can be overcome, while damage from alcohol is permanent damage.

-The features of fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) occur in 30-40% of babies born to chronic alcoholics. Another 50-70% of such babies may suffer from fetal alcohol effects (FAE), which is more specific to brain damage.

-The Journal of American Medical Association reports a startling 20% of women nationwide continue to drink after finding out they are pregnant. The incidence of drinking during pregnancy has increased substantially in the past several years.

-Over 50% of college educated women of childbearing years drink alcohol. This statistic is alarming when taking into consideration the time between conception and realization of a pregnancy.

-Only 39% of women even know what Fetal Alcohol Syndrome or Fetal Alcohol Effects are.

-The ethanol in alcohol interacts with the potassium in the fetus brain cell walls causing the brain cells to malform or die.

-A binge of 5 drinks during a pregnancy could result in full-blown Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. During the first trimester, alcohol interferes with the migration and organization of brain cells. Alcohol during the second trimester causes more clinical features of FAS. During the third trimester, the hippocampus is greatly affected, which leads to problems with encoding visual and auditory information

-80% of FASD children will drink during their childbearing years.

-80% of adopted children suffer from FASD.

FASlink, Fetal Alcohol Disorders Society, a website devoted to promoting FAS education and discussion, boldly states “FASD is grossly under-reported.” They state “few doctors have been trained to diagnose it. Most prefer to use ‘non-judgmental’ diagnoses such as LD, MR . . . Bi-Polar, etc. These ‘symptoms’ do not come with the social garbage of an alcohol associated disability.” In fact, until recently, very few medical institutions even train doctors in the diagnosis of FASD, or have curriculum that warns against drinking during pregnancies. This practice does not create an urgency to anyone to ask the right question. Three years ago, when my daughter was ready to deliver her first child, she was asked if she took drugs, but not asked if she drank any alcohol during the pregnancy. When I asked the nurse about this, the nurse did not know about FASD and was offended I questioned her.

The brain damage from FASD does not disappear when the child becomes an adult. A typical full blown Fetal Alcohol Syndrome adult does not become emancipated from adult supervision until the age of 35, if at all, spending time in either the social services system, jail, prison, or living with parents or relatives. An average FAS child will be provided Special Education services in public schools (currently 15% of public school students are being served by Special Education, a disquieting correlation to the percentage of women who drink during their pregnancy), starting in the Early Childhood program and continuing until graduation, if they do not drop out. Many run into trouble as early juveniles due to limited or non-existent impulse control, problems with judgment and memory, and inability to link consequences to their actions. Use of alcohol, drugs, gangs, sexual promiscuity, and violence are secondary outcomes of the brain damage from FASD. The list of learning disabilities include difficulties in:
· learning language and language use, especially receptive language
· generalizing information
· mastering new or recently learned skills
· memory (ie. remembering something from a year ago but not from yesterday)
· predicting outcomes or cause and effect
· distinguishing fact from fantasy
· distinguishing friends from strangers (ie. may think someone they met five minutes ago is a friend)
· controlling their impulses
· lack of learning from experience because they do not understand cause and effect, behavior and experience
· following more than one direction at a time

What can we do? Both the mother and father bear responsibility for the health of the fetus. Fathers need to know the dangers of FASD and refrain from putting their partner into situations where drinking may happen. Women in their childbearing years need to know the brain damage that will result from alcohol consumption to the developing fetus and not drink at all when any possibility of a pregnancy could occur. Doctors need to continually ask expectant mothers to completely refrain from alcohol. Doctors need to have the training and courage to identify both Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and Fetal Alcohol Effected children as early as possible. Teachers need to understand the brain damage caused by FASD and need to inform students about the dangers of drinking during pregnancy before students reach childbearing age. Parents need to be diligent in setting an example, as well as being specific of the dangers of drinking during a pregnancy. Laws must be changed to protect the fetus. Litigation against alcohol producing companies may need to happen to bring this issue to the forefront. As a society, we need to have the expectation that drinking during a pregnancy is absolutely, without exception, unacceptable. And, in order to uncover the magnitude of this epidemic, when juvenile and adult deviant and/or violent behavior happens, we always need to ask the question: Did the mother drink ANY alcohol during the pregnancy?