"I always hear 'We've got limited resources;' ach, it's a mind-set," says Leana Olivier, director of the Foundation for Alcohol Related Research in Cape Town, and a former official at South Africa's Department of Health. "The biggest resource is the human being herself." The habit of binge drinking is now ingrained in South African culture at all social levels, researchers say. In the Northern Cape town of De Aar, the rate of FAS babies is 122 per 1,000 live births, according to recent research by the Medical Research Council in Cape Town. By contrast, FAS levels in the US are between 0.1 per 1,000 and 0.67 per 1,000. "There's a tolerance of drinking in South Africa, not only among the uneducated; it's right through our culture," says Ms. Olivier.