Atomic Bomb Exposure and the Pregnancies of Biologically Related Parents

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Abstract
This paper, dealing with the relation between parental exposure to the atomic bombs and the characteristics of their children, where the parents were biologically related, completes the presentation of the data resulting from a study conducted in Hiroshima and Nagasaki between 1948 and 1953. Information was collected on the outcome of 5163 pregnancies to parents who were related as 1st cousins, 1st cousins once removed, or 2d cousins. These pregnancies were singled out for special analysis because they constitute "genetically sensitized" material. With 1 exception, no clear positive findings emerge from the analysis. That exception involves the sex ratio; these data, plus the data of the rest of the study, suggest the sex ratio to have been altered in the manner expected if sex-linked lethal mutations had been induced.