The President Kennedy assassination and the male to female birth ratio

Abstract

Introduction: Male live births occur slightly in excess of female. This ratio is expressed as M/F. Terrorist attacks induce stress which transiently lowers M/F three to five months later due to increased male foetal losses. A previous study had shown that the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963 was associated with a significant dip in M/F in the United States for 1964 due to a dip confined to March 1964. This study was carried out in order to ascertain whether the assassination influenced M/F in the rest of the world. Methods: Annual male and female live births were obtained from a World Health Organisation Mortality database for all countries reporting. Comparisons were made between 1964, the year after the assassination, and the preceding five years (1959–1963) and following five years (1965–1969). Monthly data was only available for Malta, for the period 1958–1968. Results: There were 159,339,564 live births (82,066,005 males, 77,273,559 females, M/F 0.5150; 95% CI 0.5150–0.5151). No dip was present for 1964 for any country, nor for the amalgamation of European countries, for the Far East, the North American continent, or for the amalgamation of the total. Data for Malta showed a significant decline in March 1964 (M/F 0.4661, p = 0.0175), translating to a loss of 56 boys (estimated at 6.3/1000 births). Discussion: These findings replicate the findings for the United States following the assassination of President Kennedy. The March M/F dip transiently exceeded the modern expected rate for perinatal mortality, making terrorist attacks Public Health issues.