The Crack Baby Scare: From Faulty Science to Media Panic
Easy to transport, highly addictive and sometimes deadly, crack cocaine ripped through the 1980s like a bullet, a headline-maker that seemed to destroy lives at every turn. But the symbol of that destruction was not the tiny crack vials littering the streets or the addicts crouching in corners. The poster child for America’s drug epidemic was a jittery infant whom commentators said was destined to a lifetime of pain and suffering through no fault of its own.
The “crack baby” represented the Pandora’s box that cocaine had become. But how did these tiny infants gain such status and was it justified?
In this Retro Report we look at the story of these children from the perspective of those in the eye of the storm — tracing the trajectory from the small 1985 medical study that first raised the alarm, through the drumbeat of media coverage that kept the story alive, to, decades later, when a cocaine-exposed research subject told us her own surprising life story.
More Like This

In 1982, an Australian mother was convicted of murdering her baby daughter. She was later exonerated, but soon fell victim to a joke that distracted the world from the real story.

The role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, once at the center of a moral panic, is now seen as a counterbalance to the problem of screen addiction.

Stella Liebeck was vilified when she was awarded millions after spilling McDonald’s coffee in her lap. Her complaint sounded frivolous. But the facts told another story.

In this Emmy Award-nominated film, top national political reporters admit mistakes in their reporting on the 2016 election campaign.