Justice committee  There was only one good study that was published in 1993 in the States, which showed the protective factors for improving outcomes for individuals with FASD. The top two were diagnosis before age six, because you can hopefully link to supportive services, and a stable home enviro

Justice committee  I had to think about it. Mental illness is here; FASD is here. The data are very strong and show that 95% of individuals with FASD have a diagnosed mental health condition such as anxiety, depression, those kinds of things, which are in the DSM. That's why we work very closely w

Justice committee  Gail will have an answer for this too. In rewriting the diagnostic guidelines, we tried very hard to use terminology congruent with that in the DSM-5. We call it the psychiatrist's bible. This is for psychiatrists to diagnose behavioural disorders. FASD has lots of other aspects

Justice committee  I want to do that study too, though there are data that show the cost of an individual with FASD versus costs for individuals without FASD. Costs haven't been partitioned out in terms of justice versus...but they would run the gamut, including social services, child welfare, heal

Justice committee  Yes. In Canada we have many more diagnostic clinics than we did in the past. They're continuously opening in different places. Quebec has its first one now; it's exciting. We are diagnosing more. We're trying to change the stigma around alcohol use in pregnancy so there's not th

Justice committee  I think the incidence of women drinking dangerously during child-bearing age is increasing.

Justice committee  Yes, the drinking is increasing, and the pattern.

Justice committee  There is a need. At the SOGC, the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada, we talk a lot about healthy pregnancy in general and making a package. Nutrition is important. Stress is important. Not taking drugs is important. Alcohol is important. It's a whole package o

Justice committee  No. There's a big study going on around the effects of THC, which is the active ingredient in marijuana. I haven't really looked closely at that report, but it just came out. I can access that. It's not teratogenic like alcohol. It doesn't cause birth defects in the brain.

Justice committee  Oh, that's exciting. That's a new field of epigenetics. There is evidence.

Justice committee  That's a really good question. Is the incidence of FASD increasing? Is awareness of FASD increasing so that women are disclosing their alcohol use more? Are we diagnosing more so that we can say there's more FASD?

Justice committee  A couple of years ago we did a little bit of analysis. We identified 2,000 slots for diagnosis, based on the current capacity at that time, and 3,500 for the demand. So there was a supply-demand issue, as Dr. Andrew suggested. As for data, if we don't collect data we're not goin

Justice committee  Here's my science answer because I'm not a lawyer. Thankfully, I haven't had any run-ins with justice. We know individuals have severe neurodevelopmental deficits. We know they don't learn from experience. We know they don't understand consequence. I'm saying this in general ter

Justice committee  Yes, and I have one quick thing to add. As Dr. Andrew suggested, 10 parts of brain function are assessed. You have to get three hits to meet the criteria, but our new data show that more than 50% of individuals have nine hits. That's really impaired, much more than we initially t

Justice committee  Yes. Sometimes it's $3,000, sometimes $4,000. It depends on whether you have to hunt down bio-mom, or find the data, whether you need a cultural interpreter. There are different kinds of teams for different—