diff --git a/public/java/src/org/broadinstitute/sting/gatk/walkers/variantutils/CombineVariants.java b/public/java/src/org/broadinstitute/sting/gatk/walkers/variantutils/CombineVariants.java
index 8dabd49b8..555999bdb 100755
--- a/public/java/src/org/broadinstitute/sting/gatk/walkers/variantutils/CombineVariants.java
+++ b/public/java/src/org/broadinstitute/sting/gatk/walkers/variantutils/CombineVariants.java
@@ -73,6 +73,13 @@ import java.util.*;
  * efficiency.  However, since this merge runs in only one thread, you can quickly reach diminishing
  * returns with the number of parallel threads.  -nt 4 works well but -nt 8 may be too much.
  *
+ * Some fine details about the merging algorithm:
+ *   <ul>
+ *   <li> As of GATK 2.1, when merging multiple VCF records at a site, the combined VCF record has the QUAL of
+ *      the first VCF record with a non-MISSING QUAL value.  The previous behavior was to take the
+ *      max QUAL, which resulted in sometime strange downstream confusion</li>
+ *   </ul>
+ *
  * <h2>Input</h2>
  * <p>
  * One or more variant sets to combine.
diff --git a/public/java/src/org/broadinstitute/sting/utils/variantcontext/VariantContextUtils.java b/public/java/src/org/broadinstitute/sting/utils/variantcontext/VariantContextUtils.java
index ff6b0be70..d7e4a7135 100755
--- a/public/java/src/org/broadinstitute/sting/utils/variantcontext/VariantContextUtils.java
+++ b/public/java/src/org/broadinstitute/sting/utils/variantcontext/VariantContextUtils.java
@@ -514,7 +514,7 @@ public class VariantContextUtils {
         int depth = 0;
         int maxAC = -1;
         final Map<String, Object> attributesWithMaxAC = new LinkedHashMap<String, Object>();
-        double log10PError = 1;
+        double log10PError = CommonInfo.NO_LOG10_PERROR;
         VariantContext vcWithMaxAC = null;
         GenotypesContext genotypes = GenotypesContext.create();
 
@@ -542,7 +542,9 @@ public class VariantContextUtils {
 
             mergeGenotypes(genotypes, vc, alleleMapping, genotypeMergeOptions == GenotypeMergeType.UNIQUIFY);
 
-            log10PError = Math.min(log10PError, vc.isVariant() ? vc.getLog10PError() : 1);
+            // We always take the QUAL of the first VC with a non-MISSING qual for the combined value
+            if ( log10PError == CommonInfo.NO_LOG10_PERROR )
+                log10PError =  vc.getLog10PError();
 
             filters.addAll(vc.getFilters());
 
diff --git a/public/java/test/org/broadinstitute/sting/gatk/walkers/variantutils/CombineVariantsIntegrationTest.java b/public/java/test/org/broadinstitute/sting/gatk/walkers/variantutils/CombineVariantsIntegrationTest.java
index 9ea751b72..c32d77f82 100755
--- a/public/java/test/org/broadinstitute/sting/gatk/walkers/variantutils/CombineVariantsIntegrationTest.java
+++ b/public/java/test/org/broadinstitute/sting/gatk/walkers/variantutils/CombineVariantsIntegrationTest.java
@@ -113,13 +113,13 @@ public class CombineVariantsIntegrationTest extends WalkerTest {
 
     @Test public void combineTrioCalls() { combine2("CEU.trio.2010_03.genotypes.vcf.gz", "YRI.trio.2010_03.genotypes.vcf.gz", "", "4efdf983918db822e4ac13d911509576"); } // official project VCF files in tabix format
     @Test public void combineTrioCallsMin() { combine2("CEU.trio.2010_03.genotypes.vcf.gz", "YRI.trio.2010_03.genotypes.vcf.gz", " -minimalVCF", "848d4408ee953053d2307cefebc6bd6d"); } // official project VCF files in tabix format
-    @Test public void combine2Indels() { combine2("CEU.dindel.vcf4.trio.2010_06.indel.genotypes.vcf", "CEU.dindel.vcf4.low_coverage.2010_06.indel.genotypes.vcf", "", "5d04f22ef88ed9226cbd7b4483c5cb23"); }
+    @Test public void combine2Indels() { combine2("CEU.dindel.vcf4.trio.2010_06.indel.genotypes.vcf", "CEU.dindel.vcf4.low_coverage.2010_06.indel.genotypes.vcf", "", "629656bfef7713c23f3a593523503b2f"); }
 
     @Test public void combineSNPsAndIndels() { combine2("CEU.trio.2010_03.genotypes.vcf.gz", "CEU.dindel.vcf4.low_coverage.2010_06.indel.genotypes.vcf", "", "e54d0dcf14f90d5c8e58b45191dd0219"); }
 
     @Test public void uniqueSNPs() {
         // parallelism must be disabled because the input VCF is malformed (DB=0) and parallelism actually fixes this which breaks the md5s
-        combine2("pilot2.snps.vcf4.genotypes.vcf", "yri.trio.gatk_glftrio.intersection.annotated.filtered.chr1.vcf", "", "acc70f33be741b564f7be9aa3f819dd4", true);
+        combine2("pilot2.snps.vcf4.genotypes.vcf", "yri.trio.gatk_glftrio.intersection.annotated.filtered.chr1.vcf", "", "e5ea6ac3905bd9eeea1a2ef5d2cb5af7", true);
     }
 
     @Test public void omniHM3Union() { combineSites(" -filteredRecordsMergeType KEEP_IF_ANY_UNFILTERED", "def52bcd3942bbe39cd7ebe845c4f206"); }
@@ -137,7 +137,7 @@ public class CombineVariantsIntegrationTest extends WalkerTest {
                         " -priority NA19240_BGI,NA19240_ILLUMINA,NA19240_WUGSC,denovoInfo" +
                         " -genotypeMergeOptions UNIQUIFY -L 1"),
                 1,
-                Arrays.asList("3039cfff7abee6aa7fbbafec66a1b019"));
+                Arrays.asList("e5f0e7a80cd392172ebf5ddb06b91a00"));
         cvExecuteTest("threeWayWithRefs", spec, true);
     }