The region near the HLA-DRB1 gene, in addition, presents an unusual context for rheumatoid arthritis (RA), on account of the very strong effect of certain HLA-DRB1 alleles on the phenotype [4], potentially inducing deviation from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (dHWE) in nearby SNPs in case-control samples. Here, HLA-DRB1 is linked to rheumatoid arthritis.