Kenneth R. Warren, Ph.D.

Kenneth R. Warren, Ph.D. was designated as the Associate Director for Basic Research within the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), one of the 27 research institutes encompassing the National Institutes of Health (NIH) within the Federal Government’s Department of Health and Human Services. Dr. Warren joined the staff of NIAAA in 1976. Over the course of the past 30 years he has held a number of Institute positions advancing successively from his initial service as a Scientific Review Administrator, to Chief of the Biomedical Research Branch, Deputy Director of the Division of Extramural Research, to Director of the Office of Scientific Affairs (OSA). During the 22 years for which Dr. Warren served as the Director of OSA he was concurrently the Executive Secretary for the National Advisory Council on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

One achievement of note in Dr. Warren’s career at NIAAA was the development, followed by subsequent guidance of the research program on alcohol and pregnancy. Shortly after joining the NIAAA, Dr. Warren organized the first national research workshop on fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), held in February 1977. The research workshop critically reviewed the then relatively modest amount of research that had been undertaken since the initial 1973 clinical report on the existence of FAS. At this point in time there was still little medical or public acceptance of alcohol as a prenatal risk factor. The conference served not only to set a research agenda for the future years, but it also recommended that NIAAA take the lead in alerting the medical community about FAS and the risks posed by prenatal alcohol. Dr. Warren took responsibility for securing the approval of the then Department of Health Education and Welfare for the issuance of a health advisory. This initial advisory was issued on June 1 1977.

Subsequently, Dr. Warren played a lead role in the development of a congressionally requested report on the health hazards of alcohol use. Dr. Warren prepared several chapters for the report including one on Birth Defects and Anomalies within the Report to the President and the Congress on Health Hazards associated with Alcohol and Methods to Inform the General Public of these Hazards, U.S. Department of Treasury and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services November 1980. One of the actions that followed acceptance of the Report was the issuance of the Surgeon General’s Advisory on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome in May 1981, for which Dr. Warren was the lead contributor. Twenty four years later, Dr. Warren again played a significant role in the development and issuance of an updated Surgeon General’s Advisory, issued in February 2005.

Although Dr. Warren assumed a diverse array of responsibilities in NIAAA, he continued to maintain an active involvement in alcohol and pregnancy program. He served as the project officer for the 1995 Institute of Medicine Report (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome; Diagnosis, Epidemiology, and Treatment; Institute of Medicine, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C. 1996). He has been involved in international initiatives on FAS research in South Africa and other countries, has given many presentations on this topic, and currently Chairs the Interagency Coordinating Committee on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and serves as an ex officio member of the National Task Force on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and Fetal Alcohol Effects.