Disappearing blonde gene

The "disappearing blonde gene" refers to a hoax that emerged in parts of the Western world in the early 2000s, claiming that a scientific study had estimated that blonds would become extinct within the next two centuries. More specifically, it claimed that, because the alleles for blond hair genes are recessive, people with natural blond hair would become less common as people with dominant non-blond hair alleles had offspring with them, even though such a pairing would retain one copy of the blond allele in the genome of said offspring. Nevertheless, the hoax was repeated as fact by some mainstream Western media outlets, such as ABC News, the BBC, CNN, and The Sunday Times, between 2002 and 2006. The earliest known claims of a looming "blond extinction" date back to 1865.^[2]

Several outlets propagating the hoax also falsely cited the World Health Organization (WHO), asserting that it had published a report claiming that blonds "will become extinct by 2202" in spite of the fact that neither the WHO nor any reputable expert had issued such a report.^[3] In response, the WHO released an official statement telling all those who had commented on the non-existent report to retract their remarks.^[4]