  Motivated by the possibility that it may be misleading to assume SU(3)
symmetry in the analysis of hyperon \beta-decays, we study the sensitivity of
the polarized parton densities, derived from the world data on inclusive
polarized deep inelastic lepton-nucleon scattering, to variation of the value
of the nonsinglet axial charge a_8 from its SU(3) value of 3F-D.
