Studies of the adopted-away children of schizophrenic parents that have
claimed to have shown a strong genetic factor in the etiology of
schizophrenia have had a great impact on psychiatry, including effects on
the direction and support of research. An examination of these studies,
however, controverts these conclusions. The authors demonstrate that
without the inclusion of parents with manic-depressive and indefinite
diagnoses in the index group, there is no statistically significant
difference between the number of offspring with schizophrenic spectrum
diagnoses in the index and control groups.Abstract Teaser