Taken together, these results confirm observations of Cruz et al. that total blood lymphocyte counts of C282Y homozygotes with hemochromatosis phenotypes (37 men, 9 women) did not differ significantly from those of unrelated normal control subjects (116 men, 148 women) [21] and those of Porto et al. that there is an association between low CD8(+) numbers, HLA phenotype, and severity of iron overload [22]. This evidence concerns the gene CD8A and hemochromatosis.