Haematological disorders in Greece

The material is the contents of folders of data from Karditsa (district), Karditsomagoula and Orchomenos in Greece. These areas are not those studied by George Fraser in his work in Greece in the summer of 1962 (the Arta region), but references suggest they are the work of G. Stamatoyannopoulos and his colleagues in Athens, sent to Fraser for assistance with calculations.

1960s-1970

19 files

In November 1961 George Fraser moved to the USA as a Research Fellow in A. G. Motulsky's Department of Medical Genetics, University of Washington, Seattle. Here Fraser was involved with analysing the results of Motulsky’s studies of frequencies of haemoglobinopathies and of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency in various populations. Most of his time was spent with these studies, including several months of field work in Yugoslavia and Greece in the summer of 1962. These studies were promoted by Motulsky and performed in association with Professor Phaedon Fessas and his colleagues in Athens. The work resulted in six publications:

1. G. R. Fraser, B. Defaranas et al, 'Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, colour vision, and Xg blood groups in Greece: linkage and population data', Annals of Human Genetics, Vol. 27 (1964);

2. G. R. Fraser, G. Stamatoyannopoulos et al, 'Thalassemias, abnormal hemoglobins and glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency in the Arta area of Greece: diagnostic and genetic aspects of complete village studies', Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. 119 (1964);

3. G. R. Fraser, G. Stamatoyannopoulos et al, 'Further data from Greece on recombination between the Xg blood group and glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency', American Journal of Human Genetics, Vol. 20 (1968);

4. G. R. Fraser, A.G. Steinberg et al, 'Gene frequencies at loci determining blood-group and serum-protein polymorphisms in two villages of Northwestern Greece', American Journal of Human Genetics, Vol. 21 (1969);

5. G. R. Fraser, O. Mayo and G. Stamatoyannopoulos, 'Genetic influences on serum cholesterol in two Greek villages', Human Heredity, Vol. 19 (1969).

6. O. Mayo, S. L. Wiesenfeld, G. Stamatoyannopoulos, G and G R Fraser: 'Genetical influences on serum-cholesterol level', Lancet Vol 2 (1971)

The latter publication discusses in full the methodology of the fifth paper, which demonstrated for the first time an association between serum cholesterol levels and the ABO blood group, based on the study of 904 of the 950 inhabitants of two villages (Ghavria and Kalovatos) in the Arta region of Northwest Greece. Other demonstrations of this association between the ABO blood group and serum cholesterol level soon followed, including the sixth paper listed above which was based on the study of 572 males born in Corfu before 1937.

Brief accounts of these works are in the Festschrift to Fraser in David Weatherall, 'George Fraser and the "malaria" hypothesis', pp 105-109, and J.H. Edwards, 'Genome scans and the old genetics', 393-399. See also PP/GRF/E.23, and PP/GRF/J.2.

Fraser recorded,

'The studies in Greece were intended to have long-term consequences in that we gave information to each inhabitant of these two villages about their status with respect to haemoglobinopathies, and about the significance of this information with respect to their choice of marriage partner. Two similar projects were organized later in different areas of Greece (Karditsa, Karditsomagoula, Orchomenos) within the framework of this collaboration between Athens and Seattle; these were carried out without my participation. Although the data from these studies were sent to me for scrutiny and assistance with analysis. I was not a co-author of any publications arising from these studies.

Subsequently, it was recognised that, in Greece at least, this form of genetical counselling within entire populations was not effective in that little or no notice was taken of the implications of the information and advice given. In 1992, thirty years after my participation in the Arta expedition, I visited the two villages which were involved, Ghavria and Kalovatos, accompanied by my wife, Maria, who is Greek. We spoke to the village priest who had not been there in 1962; we explained who we were and what I had done in 1962. We asked him what had happened in this connection when people came to see him to discuss their projected marriages. “Oh,” he said “no one now remembers much about this matter. It seems that some researchers came from Athens aeons ago. They did all these blood tests and they gave people bits of paper with some results, but no one took any notice of these bits of paper when they were deciding whom to marry”. The experience in the other two studies which I mentioned was similar. It should be noted in this context that selective abortion has been widely practised in Greece with respect to haemoglobinopathies. In Cyprus, the acceptance of selective abortion has been more complete than in Greece'.

Greek