Physicians, Scientists to Media: Stop Using the Term "Crack Baby"
2/27/2004
Press Release
Brown University
Providence, RI 02912
www.brown.edu
Contact:
David C. Lewis, M.D.
Professor of Medicine and Community Health
Phone: 401-444-1818
David_Lewis@brown.edu
Top Medical Doctors and Scientists Urge Major Media Outlets to Stop
Perpetuating "Crack Baby" Myth
Signatories from Leading Hospitals and Research Institutes in US and Canada
Agree That Term Lacks Scientific Basis and Is Dangerous to Children
Letter Sent to Washington Post, Arizona Republic, LA Weekly, Charleston Post and
Courier, Amarillo Globe-News and Other Media Using These Terms
On February 25, 2004 thirty leading medical doctors, scientists and
psychological researchers released a public letter calling on the media to stop
the use of such terms as "crack baby" and "crack addicted baby" and similarly
stigmatizing terms, such as "ice babies" and "meth babies." This broad group of
researchers agrees that these terms lack scientific validity and should not be
used.
Motivated by a New Jersey case in which the label was used to explain away
apparent efforts by the parents to starve some of their adopted foster children,
these leading doctors and researchers collaborated to write a consensus
statement requesting that the media stop using such terms.
Members of the consensus group agree "These pejorative labels result in damaging
stigma that hurts the children all of us are working so hard to protect."
The full text of this letter with a complete list of signatories follows and is
also available in a PDF document (17K). Please
click
here to view the document.
Open Letter to the Media
February 25, 2004
To Whom It May Concern:
As medical and psychological researchers with many years of experience studying
addictions and prenatal exposure to psychoactive substances, we are writing to
request that the terms "crack baby" and "crack addicted baby" be dropped from
usage. These terms and similarly stigmatizing terms, such as "ice babies" and "meth
babies," lack scientific validity and should not be used.
Despite the lack of a medical or scientific basis for the use of these
pejorative and stigmatizing labels, they have been repeatedly used in the
popular media, in a wide variety of contexts and across the country. Just a few
examples include:
the Washington Post ("She taught a class of about eight kids, ages 3 to 6, in
Charlottesville when her husband, Rob, was attending business school at the
University of Virginia. Some of the children just had speech delays; others were
crack babies.")
Ylan Q. Mui, Including Ashley, Washington Post Magazine (Nov. 9, 2003, at W22);
LA Weekly (California) ("Some widows take up tennis, or volunteer to be museum
docents or to hold crack babies down at County hospital")
Michelle Huneven, Atwater Rising (Sept. 12, 2003 pg. 38); The Arizona Republic
("But the number of removals was rising in the four months before that, up 13
percent after the 2001 death of a crack baby was made public last summer.")
Karina Bland, CPS Taking More Children; New Effort May Stir Trouble Experts Say
(July 5, 2003 pg. 1A); The Post and Courier (Charleston, SC) ("The defendants
had asked the Supreme Court to again consider the issue of whether the women
knew their urine was being screened for drugs, as part of a 1989 policy designed
to stop the crack baby epidemic.")
Herb Frazier, Supreme Court Won't Review MUSC Case; Trial Will Determine Damage
Awards for 10 Pregnant Women on Cocaine, (June 17, 2003, pg. 3B);
Amarillo Globe-News, Jim McBride, Women Indicted in 'Crack Baby' Case (Feb. 6,
2004, pg. 1A).
Throughout almost 20 years of research, none of us has identified a recognizable
condition, syndrome or disorder that should be termed "crack baby." Some of our
published research finds subtle effects of prenatal cocaine exposure in selected
developmental domains, while other of our research publications do not. This is
in contrast to Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, which has a narrow and specific set of
criteria for diagnosis.
The term "crack addicted baby" is no less defensible. Addiction is a technical
term that refers to compulsive behavior that continues in spite of adverse
consequences. By definition, babies cannot be "addicted" to crack or anything
else. In utero physiologic dependence on opiates (not addiction), known as
Neonatal Narcotic Abstinence Syndrome, is readily diagnosed, but no such
symptoms have been found to occur following prenatal cocaine exposure.
That these concerns are not merely academic is vividly illustrated by the fact
that the media's use of these terms has led to a situation in which children can
be starved and abused and the "crack baby" label can be used to excuse the
results. The New York Times' coverage of the New Jersey family that allegedly
starved four of their adopted sons provides a compelling and tragic example of
how the stereotype of the "crack baby" is not only scientifically inaccurate,
but potentially dangerous to the children to whom it is applied.
On October 28, 2003, Lydia Polgreen, in "Uneven Care Not Unusual in Families,
Experts Say," reported that the family used this label as an explanation for the
children's apparent lack of growth: "In the Jacksons' case, the couple told
friends, neighbors and people who went to their church that the four brothers
had been born addicted to crack cocaine and had an eating disorder."
Several days later, in another story on the same children, "Amid Images of Love
and Starvation, a More Nuanced Picture Emerges" (November 2, 2003), Leslie
Kaufman and Richard Lezin Jones reported that "if anyone asked about the little
ones, they were told that the children had some fetal alcohol and crack baby
syndromes, and that's why they would never grow."
While these references are indirect quotes from sources, another New York Times
story that used this term and the many uses of the term by other media outlets
validated this usage. In "In Home That Looked Loving, 4 Boys' Suffering Was
Unseen" (October 28, 2003), the New York Times reported that "Michael, the
youngest, was born a crack baby before being taken in."
We are deeply disappointed that American and international media continues to
use a term that not only lacks any scientific basis but endangers and
disenfranchises the children to whom it is applied.
We would be happy to furnish an extensive bibliography if requested or to send
representatives to meet with the staff or editorial boards of your paper,
journal, or station and to give you more detailed technical information.
Please feel free to contact David C. Lewis, M.D., 401-444-1818,
David_Lewis@brown.edu, Professor
of Alcohol and Addiction Studies at Brown University, who has agreed to
coordinate such requests on our behalf and who can provide you with contact
information for the researchers listed below in alphabetical order.
Sincerely,
Robert E. Arendt, PhD
Research Director
The Buckeye Ranch
Emmalee S. Bandstra, M.D.
Professor of Pediatrics and Obstetrics and Gynecology
Director, Perinatal Chemical Addiction Research and Education (CARE) Program
Departments of Pediatrics, Division of Neonatology
University of Miami School of Medicine
Marjorie Beeghly, Ph.D
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School
Senior Research Associate, Children's Hospital, Boston
Child Development Unit
Children's Hospital
Marylou Behnke, M.D.
Professor, Department of Pediatrics
Co-Director, Developmental Evaluation and Intervention Program
University of Florida, College of Medicine
Maureen Black, Ph.D
Professor, Department of Pediatrics, University of Maryland School of Medicine
Elizabeth R. Brown, M.D.
Director of Neonatology
Boston University School of Medicine/Boston Medical Center
Ira J. Chasnoff, M.D.
Children's Research Triangle
Wendy Chavkin, M.D., MPH
Professor of Clinical Public Health and Obstetrics and Gynecology
Mailman School of Public Health and College of Physicians and Surgeons
Columbia University
Claire D. Coles, Ph.D
Director, Fetal Alcohol and Drug Exposure Center, Marcus Institute
Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Emory University School of Medicine
Nancy Day, Ph.D
Professor of Psychiatry and Epidemiology
Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic
Virginia Delaney-Black, M.D., MPH
Professor of Pediatrics
Wayne State University
Assistant Director, Children's Research Center of Michigan
Children's Hospital of Michigan
Chris Derauf, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine
Fonda Davis Eyler, Ph.D
Professor, Department of Pediatrics
Co-Director, Developmental Evaluation and Intervention Program
University of Florida, College of Medicine
Deborah A. Frank, M.D.
Professor of Pediatrics
Boston University School of Medicine
Boston Medicine Center
Peter Fried, Ph.D
Department of Psychology
Carleton University
Judith M. Gardner, Ph.D
Bernard Z. Karmel, Ph.D.
NYS Institute for Basic Research in Developmental Disabilities
Hallam Hurt, M.D.
Associate Professor of Pediatrics
Neonatology, Department of Pediatrics
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Joseph L. Jacobson, Ph.D
Professor and Chair, Department of Psychology
Wayne State University
Sandra W. Jacobson, Ph.D
Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences
Wayne State University School of Medicine
Stephen R. Kandall, MD
Professor of Pediatrics, Emeritus
John R. Knight, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School
Director, Center for Adolescent Substance Abuse Research
Children's Hospital, Boston
Gideon Koren M.D., FRCPC
Professor of Pediatrics, Pharmacology, Pharmacy, Medicine, and Medical Genetics
University of Toronto
Director, Motherisk Program
Senior Scientist
The Hospital for Sick Children
Clinical Pharmacology Department
Barry Lester, Ph.D
Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics
Brown Medical School
Director, Infant Development Center
Linda Mayes, M.D.
Arnold Gesell Professor of Child Psychiatry, Pediatrics, and Psychology
Yale Child Study Center
Connie E. Morrow, Ph.D.
Research Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Psychology
Associate Director, Perinatal Chemical Addiction Research and Education (CARE)
Program
University of Miami School of Medicine
Prasanna Nair, M.D., MPH
Professor, Department of Pediatrics
University of Maryland School of Medicine
Daniel R. Neuspiel, M.D., MPH
Associate Professor of Pediatrics and of Population Health
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Associate Chairman of Pediatrics, Beth Israel Medical Center
Gale A. Richardson, Ph.D
Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Epidemiology
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic
Lynn T. Singer, Ph.D
Interim Provost and University Vice-President
Case Western University
Barry Zuckerman, M.D.
Professor and Chairman
Department of Pediatrics
Boston University School of Medicine
Boston Medical Center
Source: click here JTO (PDF file)