Leonard D, et al. - Researchers sought to investigate if single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) at autoimmunity risk loci were related to cardiovascular disease (CVD) in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA). In SLE and RA, but not in the general population, the IL19 risk allele was related to stroke/myocardial infarction (MI), suggesting that in inflammatory rheumatic diseases, shared immune pathways could be involved in the CVD pathogenesis.