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"How Blonds Evolve," Reading File, Week in Review, Sunday:

Roger Dobson and Abul Taher report in The London Times ... on a study suggesting blonds began having more fun in the Ice Age....

A study by the World Health Organization found that natural blonds are likely to be extinct within 200 years because there are too few people carrying the blond gene. According to the W.H.O. study, the last natural blond is likely to be born in Finland during 2202.

"Stop Those Presses! Blonds, It Seems, Will Survive After All," by Lawrence K. Altman, Oct. 2, 2002:

Apparently it fell into the category "too good to check."

Last Friday, several British newspapers reported that the World Health Organization had found in a study that blonds would become extinct within 200 years, because blondness was caused by a recessive gene that was dying out. The reports were repeated on Friday by anchors for the ABC News program ''Good Morning America,'' and on Saturday by CNN.

There was only one problem, the health organization said in a statement yesterday that it never reported that blonds would become extinct, and it had never done a study on the subject.

How Blonds Evolve [NYT]
Stop Those Presses! Blonds, It Seems, Will Survive After All [NYT]