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David Goldman; Gerald L. Brown, MD; Annabel M. Bolos, MD
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Bethesda, Md

Susan Lucas-Derse; Michael Dean, PhD
Program Resources, Inc Frederick, Md

JAMA. 1991;265(20):2668.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

In Reply.—

Blum et al¹ evaluated a D₂ receptor polymorphism in 35 alcoholics and 35 nonalcoholics. Their subjects were dead and therefore were not psychiatrically interviewed. We² compared 40 interviewed alcoholics with 127 non-diagnosed population controls and reanalyzed two families by genetic linkage. We also tested a second marker at the D₂ locus. Both letters address only our population study and the Taq I restriction fragment length polymorphism data.

Blum et al did not provide data for age of onset, severity, presence or absence of antisocial personality, or family history of alcoholism. These factors correlate with increased genetic risk for alcoholism. In our alcoholics, none of these variables was associated with either D₂ polymorphism. Also, both families with early-onset alcoholism provided evidence against linkage.

As Noble and Blum state, it may be of interest that the "Al" allele was present in more of our "severe" . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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