The word "eugenics" itself was even deamed dirty in Britain and the United States. In 1940, the Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor, led by Charles Davenport, was shut down. Most other eugenic-based organizations slowly went belly up, as the entire eugenics field became an embarrassment. Many eugenicists changed professions quickly, and most citizens stopped using eugenic practices in order to benefit their families. States in the US cut back extremely in their compulsory sterilization of criminals, and laws legalizing it were repealed.

The makers of the textbook Human Heredity sensured the old eugenics, warning of the events to which it could lead. However, they did support reform eugenics, but they did so only after a significant amount of study had been put into the science of human genetics.

This genetics was a fairly new science, and it really did not gain much attention until near the end of the war. Where eugenics used statistical information to base its theories, genetics differed, as it studied the physical traits of the human body that were responsible for heredity. Being more of a physical science, more hardcore data and facts could be gained. Institutions devoted entirely to the study of genetics were formed around the United States and elsewhere in the early 1940s.

In a way, as some have said, genetics killed eugenics. But eugenics was not entirely destroyed, as it has been slowly returning from its dorment stage. With the development of new technologies and new scientific discoveries, eugenics may soon make a giant come back.