Genetics of Juvenile Diabetes

Abstract

To the Editor: We should like to comment on the claim made by Rubinstein et al. that juvenile insulin-dependent diabetes is inherited as a recessive trait (N Engl J Med 297:1036, 1977).Our group,¹ Cudworth et al.,² and others^{3 , 4} also have studied the HLA system in diabetic multiplex families. Cudworth's report, although in the literature for about two years, was not noted by the authors. Increase in intra-HLA recombination in the diabetic children was not found in any of these studies, which included 76 families and more than 150 diabetic patients. We therefore believe that any support for the recessive . . .