By Brian Carnell

Wednesday, October 2, 2002

Numerous media outlets last week carried an incredible story -- blonds would become extinct within 200 years. A World Health Organization study, it was reported, had looked at the issue and found that since blondness is caused by a recessive gene, blonds would gradually become rarer and then finally completely absent from the human gene pool.

The only problem with this is that it's a complete hoax from start to finish. Several British newspapers initially reported these claims, and then newspapers and broadcast television (including CNN) in the United States picked up on the story. Few reporters and news agencies who reported the story, it turns out, ever bothered to actually check with the World Health Organization to find out if it had actually conducted such a study.

And, of course, it never has. The WHO put out a press release this week saying the story was completely bogus.

Source:

Extinction of blondes vastly overreported. Washington Post, October 2, 2002.

Stop those presses! Blonds, it seems, will survive after all. Lawrence K. Altman, New York Times, October 2, 2002.

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