Stop stigmatizing

Page 5

Dear Editor:

There is a widespread belief that there is an epidemic of FAS (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome) in Aboriginal Canada. This is based on the assumption that large numbers of Aboriginal people in general, and Aboriginal women in particular, drink to excess. The problem is there are no systematic scientific studies to bear this out; specifically, there are no nationwide, community-by-community surveys that have properly assessed alcohol use among Aboriginal North Americans.

Some teachers, social service workers, addictions counsellors and community health paraprofessionals, most having limited or no medical training, have been embracing the category of prenatal alcohol exposure as an explanation for a myriad of physical and behavioral anomalies they see exhibited by their clients and pupils in the Native communities they serve. This informal or non-medical labelling is becoming more and more widespread and it is based on the misperception that FAS is rampant in many Aboriginal communities.

With more than 500 tribes and 200 distinct languages, Aboriginal North Americans have dissimilarity in customs, values and histories that differentiate them more than the citizens of many European countries. The only firm conclusion that can be made about their alcohol consumption is that it varies widely.

What has been statistically verified is, fewer Aboriginals (70 per cent) compared with the total population (81 per cent) choose to drink alcohol (The Aboriginal Peoples Survey APS, Statistics Canada, 1993). And further to this, we know Aboriginal women are more likely than Aboriginal men and non-Aboriginal women to abstain from alcohol use. Despite some rather obvious scientific shortcomings, there is a consensus of certainty FAS is rampant in Aboriginal communities across Canada. And this consensus of certainty exists despite the reality that "Canadian research has yet to establish whether any Native population is a high risk for FAS" (Bray & Anderson, 1989).

The stigma associated with labelling disorders such as FAS, whether it be medical or non-medical, formal or informal, a true diagnosis or a misdiagnosis, is really all the same: FAS is a stigmatizing illness. Simply having been suspected of having FAS can be equally stigmatizing.

And any formal or informal, warranted or unwarranted assignment of a stigmatizing illness, by definition, gives the labelled individual an inferior moral status.

-Mark Rota