In 2018, Australia and New Zealand agreed to mandate that all alcohol products labelled after 31 July 2023 carry a warning that ‘alcohol can cause lifelong harm to your baby’. The warning was intended to address a knowledge deficit in the Australian community, especially amongst women intending to become pregnant, about the risks of Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (a set of permanent disabilities with one causal pathway: exposure to alcohol in utero). The mandating of the warning followed many years of ineffective industry self-regulation of alcohol and pregnancy warnings.
Since 2023, we have conducted the Alcohol Industry Monitoring System (AIMS) study under a grant from the National Health and Medical Research Council and examined the alcohol industry’s uptake of the alcohol and pregnancy warning label, including: whether alcohol products carry the warning; if so, where on the container the warnings have been placed and whether the warnings conform with legal requirements about the size of the warning; whether the warnings appear on images of the product in online retail environments.
In this paper, we present results from the AIMS study which demonstrate some deficits in industry’s uptake of the warning, including products not bearing the warning, the warning being overwhelmingly positioned away from the front label, and the absence of the warning in online retail environments. Regulatory changes are needed to address these deficits. These findings provide lessons for future alcohol warning label schemes in Australia, NZ and other countries.