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- <text id=89TT1195>
- <title>
- May 08, 1989: Business Notes:Product Liability
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- May 08, 1989 Fusion Or Illusion?
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- BUSINESS, Page 71
- Business Notes
- PRODUCT LIABILITY
- Who Injured This Child?
- </hdr><body>
- <p> Michael Thorp, born in Seattle in 1984, suffers mental
- retardation, malformed limbs and other handicaps, all aspects
- of a condition known as fetal alcohol syndrome. Now a court is
- wrestling with the question of who, if anyone, is responsible
- for his condition.
- </p>
- <p> Michael's mother, Candance Thorp, admits she drank up to
- half of a fifth of Jim Beam bourbon every day while she was
- pregnant. But in a trial that began last week in Seattle, she
- blames the Chicago distiller for her child's injuries because
- the bottles did not carry labels warning that alcohol could harm
- unborn children. The distiller claims that doctors had urged
- Thorp to stop drinking while pregnant.
- </p>
- <p> The James Beam distillery is the first liquor manufacturer
- to come to trial in a case involving fetal alcohol syndrome.
- Starting in November, all manufacturers of beer, wine and liquor
- must put labels on their containers warning that alcohol can
- cause birth defects and other health problems.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-