The Dose is the Poison

Repeat after me, the dose is the poison:

Women will be told not to drink while pregnant or even when trying for
a baby in controversial government guidelines which will mean warning
labels being put on bottles of wine, spirits and beer.The plea for
total abstinence follows growing fears over the rise among binge
drinking among young women and concern that maternal drinking can cause
possible brain damage in the womb.

Serious drinking in pregnancy can indeed cause brain damage: Foetal Alcohol Syndrome. There is indeed binge drinking amongst young women.

But neither of these facts justify lying to people. In moderation (in fact, in the sort of amounts in the current guidelines) alcohol may do more good than harm: it certainly reduces stress for example.

Repeat after me: the dose is the poison.

2 responses

  1. Welcome to post-normal science.

  2. Can’t be long before some left-wing dick pushes for prohibition. They can’t help themselves. We seem to be producing scientists who eschew evidence for some quasi religious feeling rather than hard statistics. The horrid practice of ethics is muddying the waters of real science. God help us all.

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