The statement
On this page11
The text
"GOVERNMENT WARNING: (1) According to the Surgeon General, women should not drink alcoholic beverages during pregnancy because of the risk of birth defects. (2) Consumption of alcoholic beverages impairs your ability to drive a car or operate machinery, and may cause health problems."
It is a fixed string
Which is what makes the arithmetic possible. 283 characters including spaces and punctuation, and that number does not change with the product.
Two numbered clauses
The first about pregnancy and birth defects, the second about driving, machinery and health problems. The numbering is part of the required text.
The capitalization is part of it too
GOVERNMENT WARNING in capitals, which matters for the arithmetic because capitals are wider than lowercase in most typefaces.
And it has to stand separate and apart
The section requires the statement to appear separate and apart from other label information, on the brand label, front label, or back or side label.
That placement requirement is described here, not quoted
Because the rendering obtained for it was a paraphrase rather than the text. A described requirement labeled as described beats a quote that is not one.
Separate and apart is a layout constraint
It means the statement cannot be woven into the ingredient panel or the brand story. It needs its own block, with whatever margin that implies.
So the real requirement is larger than 11.32 inches
The computed line length is the type alone. A block set apart from everything else needs space around it that the arithmetic does not include.
Which is why the median bottle is a problem rather than a near miss
8.52 inches of circumference against 11.32 inches of required line, before any margin, means at least two lines and a reserved area.
None of which is negotiable by typography
The height has a floor and the density has a ceiling. There is no setting that makes the string shorter.