The Meckel syndrome in the Hutterites.

At least three cases of the Meckel syndrome have been identified in the Hutterites. Two of these were sibs and were studied during life; the other, a close relative, was diagnosed retrospectively by a review of hospital records. All parents were consanguineous. The phenotype ranged in severity from the association of occipital meningocele, cystic kidneys, postaxial polydactyly, and microphthalmia to a milder expression consisting of cystic kidneys, ocular defects apparent only on funduscopic examination, and a brain abnormality demonstrated by computer tomography. Survival ranged from 5 to 13 months. In one patient, the renal lesion was manifested as a tubular rather than a glomerular defect, and was probably not the primary cause of death.

Immunoglobulin (Gm) allotypes in a sample of Canadian Ashkenazic Jews.

Gm typing on the serum specimens of 507 Ashkenazic Jews (pre-dominantly of Polish-Russian ancestry) from Toronto, Canada has established the presence of haplotypes Gm3;5, Gm1;21, Gm1,2;21, and Gm1,17;5, and the absence of haplotypes Gm1;13,15,16, Gm1;5,6, and Gm1;5,6,24 which have been found in other Jewish peoples. It is suggested that Ashkenazic populations have lower frequencies of haplotype Gm1,17;5 than non-European Jewish populations, and that some eastern European Jewish populations have acquired the Gm1;13,15,16 haplotype through gene flow from Central Asia. Thus Jewish populations show differences in the Gm system; many of the differences may be in the direction of similarities to neighbouring non-Jewish populations.

The equivalence of United States census data for persons of Russian stock or descent with American Jews: an evaluation.

While the U.S. Bureau of the Census has had a long-standing policy of abstaining from enumerating the religious beliefs or backgrounds of the American people, at least two-thirds of the Jewish population of the United States has been enumerated in decennial censuses and sample surveys in the guise of persons of Russian stock or origin. This has come about through the migration policy of the old Russian Empire and the statistical categories utilized by American immigration authorities and by the U. S. Bureau of the Census for immigrants and their children. Comparisons between the returns from an ethnic survey and a survey on the religious composition demonstrate the close congruence between persons of Russian stock or descent and American Jews on the national level.