Investigating the fetal and postnatal effects of paternal alcohol exposure in mouse offspring: A review

To further elucidate the possible effects of paternal alcohol exposure on fetal and post-natal development, Lee et al. conducted an experimental animal study from which potential transgenerational consequences of paternal alcohol exposure on mouse offspring were explored. The authors concluded that paternal alcohol consumption likely poses some risk to those developing offspring. However, the authors’ analysis of the incidence of fetal abnormalities may be misleading. The incidence of abnormality for each treatment group was calculated by dividing the number of abnormalities by the total number of dames. This approach to presenting the data is misrepresentative, because if a dame were carrying one abnormally developed fetus out of a litter of, say, 16, the entire litter would be captured as an “abnormality” in the calculation of incidence.