As a young medical student in the late 1960s, psychiatrist Carl Bell noticed an alarming number of poor African Americans being diagnosed with mild “mental retardation.” At that time, this was attributed to what was called “Sociocultural Mental Retardation.“ In other words: Blacks didn’t have cultural appreciation for education or they lacked resources. Over the years, Bell encountered thousands upon thousands of poor and imprisoned African Americans who were given similar diagnoses. Something about this analysis never quite rang true to him. Recently, he realized that these cases shared a commonality: Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. His practice has exploded recently. A significant percentage of his patients had a mom who abused alcohol during pregnancy. There are some links between the the early science and current public and health policies. Dr. Bell joins our guest host Charlie Meyerson to dig deeper into this issue. (Photo:Wikimedia Commons/Teresa Kellerman)