Original publications on the LSS and CFS samples are not always easy to interpret, as three types of control populations were used: adoptees with antisocial behavior in biological family members (usually, but not exclusively, parents),2 adoptees with alcohol problems in biological family members, and control adoptees. Results were reported for alcoholic versus nonalcoholic and for antisocial versus nonantisocial biological backgrounds. A subsequent publication (Cadoret 1994) has reported numbers for the alcoholic biological background versus control comparisons for males, and those numbers are used here; however, no similar breakdown appears to have been published for female adoptees. Thus, the “control” sample of female adoptees for each study includes adoptees from a nonalcoholic but antisocial biological background. Insofar as an overlap exists between genetic risk factors for alcoholism and antisocial behavior, this overlap will cause the risk ratios for women to be underestimated.
