I came of age in New York City during the height of the crack cocaine era. I don’t think that young people living in the city today can fully comprehend what this was like. One thing to say is that the media was guilty of reporting countless sensational stories about crime and violence during that time. Many of these stories included a myriad references to “crack babies.” Turns out that there was no actual epidemic of “crack babies.” It served as another excuse to wage war on black women and our bodies in particular…

The New York Times reported recently on the “epidemic that was not:”

This week’s Retro Report video on “crack babies” (infants born to addicted mothers) lays out how limited scientific studies in the 1980s led to predictions that a generation of children would be damaged for life. Those predictions turned out to be wrong. This supposed epidemic — one television reporter talks of a 500 percent increase in damaged babies — was kicked off by a study of just 23 infants that the lead researcher now says was blown out of proportion. And the shocking symptoms — like tremors and low birth weight — are not particular to cocaine-exposed babies, pediatric researchers say; they can be seen in many premature newborns.

The worrisome extrapolations made by researchers — including the one who first published disturbing findings about prenatal cocaine use — were only part of the problem. Major newspapers and magazines, including Rolling Stone, Newsweek, The Washington Post and The New York Times, ran articles and columns that went beyond the research. Network TV stars of that era, including Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings and Dan Rather, also bear responsibility for broadcasting uncritical reports.

Included in their report is a very well done video. You can watch it here.