Upset by tonights Dispatches - cousin marriages

[MumNWLondon]

AIBU to think that in the light of the known health risks of cousin marriages there are has not been a nation wide campaign alerting people of the risks.

Just watched Dispatches and cousin marriages.

Salient points:

• massive increased risks of children with genetic conditions with cousin marriages - 700 affected babies born each year
• something like British pakistanis have 1/3 of children with genetic diseases yet they are only 1.5% of population
• can't do genetic testing as only 40% of things can even be tested for. with cousin marriage new gene mutations result in genetic conditions
• each child can cost NHS £250k per year
• very little awareness for fear of being "racist" (although same issues would affect non muslims too)

Of course lots of people on program saying well my parents are cousins and i am healthy. of course they are, it just increases risks a lot, doesn't mean they'll def have disabled children.

Just13 - my thoughts exactly - upset at the needless suffering of the children, when much could be avoided by public health campaigns.

If memory serves (so it may be a bit dodgy) the reason why cousin marriages have never been outlawed in the UK is because of the Royal Family, and its preference for marrying other royals.

I am not sure it's something you can legislate against. I had my DD in Oman where cousin marriage is 'normal'. Because I had a CS, I needed 3 units of blood to be donated, not for me to use if necessary, rather for the nationals to be given due to G6pD which is a blood disorder similar to sickle cell anaemia. This is hugely common there due to cosanguinous marriages. A friend of ours was hugely proud that his parents weren't related.
While I am not supporting it, I think something that has been done for economic and social reasons for generations would be hard to eradicate.

I used to work in one of the UK's largest Pakastani/Bangladeshi vommunities. I saw a lot of children with learning difficulties and genetic conditions.

The problem is not so much first cousin marriages. It's that the children of those marriages go on to marry their own cousins and thier children marry their cousins. Add to that the practise of older men, who are statistically more likely to have damaged sperm, marrying younger, fertile women, and the results were fairly obvious.

DH used to work at Great Ormond Street. He saw plenty of British Pakastani/Bangaldeshi children with some pretty rare genetic diseases. The costs of caring for these children are staggering. It's not uncommon for the costs of treatment for one child to run into the millions of pounds. Now while I'm a firm believer in the NHS and will defend the right to free health care, it's just all so unnecessary. The dangers are well known and documented.

The community has, to a large extent IME, closed it's eyes to the issue, preferring to keep money and property within the extended family. It's often easier to blame racism/Islamophobia and mistrust science, while relying on science to find a 'miracle' cure than take a long hard look at their cultural (not religious) practises.

It is legislated against in Mexico and some states in the US, so it is possible.

Good post, slug

What made me upset was that the people carried on having second, third etc children even having seen the devastating results of their in-breeding in their first child. Although this is not confined to in-breeding, I've seen other cases where a couple have a child with defects caused by the combination of their parent's DNA but they don't think to stop the suffering by stopping at the first child.

It was very sobering viewing. I also felt quite angry at some of the parents and that imam, who were in such denial. How can you tackle such an ingrained custom, though? The programme said between 50-75% of British Pakistani marriages (in some parts of the UK) are between first cousins. That's astonishing. The communities just aren't going to be willing to acknowledge the problem - the benefits of keeping the family assets well and truly within the family are too important.

Had a wry laugh at the elderly man though. "I know my son's wife will be good to me". Yes, because you're her uncle as well as her father in law

Weirdly, cousin marriages came up in conversation this weekend. I was out for dinner with 9 other people and I won £90 (£10 from each of them) because no-one could believe that cousin marriages were actually legal in the UK.

Weirdly, there are less close relationships which are illegal but the cousin thing is some ancient exception dating from Henry VII.

Personally, I think it's pretty close and I'm surprised they havent outlawed it before now.

I went to University with a girl from Pakistan - both her and her sister married brothers and they were all first cousins.

There children are all fine but it would be perfectly legal for their children from each union to marry each other.

I don't actually know how you could legislate against all of this but there is a huge amount of human misery involved.

The natural instinct of most people is to marry outside their village, kith and kin. Genghis Khan didn't travel far and wide simply to rape and pillage. It's well known that you improve the gene pool if you breed with people from elsewhere. As for people being happier marrying cousins, really? I find that very unlikely but if they want to indulge themselves that way let them be obliged to put up a compulsory financial bond which requires them as a family to pay any additional costs arising from the disability of the children. If they cannot raise the funds for the permia then they will just have to marry someone who won't pose a genetic risk.

I'm not in favour of banning things but children do need to be told these statistics in school so they can make informed choices.

There are loads of Pakistani families around. They are not like pitcairn island with 5 women to choose from only to marry in a group of 40 so inbreeding is hardly surprising. There is a massive choice so why choose your cousin who you probably grew up with in the same house like a brother or sister.

Don't ban it but keep up the publicity, make it be known as a very strange and bad thing and damaging for children and cause of suffering so that people think twice before doing it. One of the nice things about moving abroad and finding difference places and cultures is that mankind then mixes with the host country and cultures are subsumed. These are the good things that arise from immigration and should be embraced with enthusiasm.

Europe's royal families were notorious for this too in history but then we realised it was a bad thing and it's less common now and I'm sure those countries adn cultures who do it a lot similarly will in time realise it is a bad thing.

Rare genetic conditions can be passed from generation to generation over centuries as damaged recessive genes that do no harm to the people carrying them as long as they have one good gene. It is only when they meet someone else who has the same recessive gene and has children wth them that it becomes expressed in the child is unlucky enough to receive two damaged recessive genes - one from each parent.

However, even with two parents who have recessive genes there is only a 25% chance of their child receiving two damaged recessive genes.

The problem with first cousin marriages is that the probability of both cousins having the same damaged recessive gene is much higher than if two random people meet in the general population.

The key to dealing with this problem is developing screens for all genetic diseases. Then there would be no greater risk for first cousins marrying than random people marrying from the general population. I know a Jewish couple who had checks done for the CJD gene before they got married and were fine.

I think it has been known about for a long time tbh.

Wasn´t there haemophilia in the Royal family due to cousins/close relatives marrying?

Isn't it Tay Sachs that Jewish couples often get tested for? It's very prevalent amongst Ashkenazi Jewish communities, not necessarily due to cousin marriages, but marriages within a relatively small community.

And they say the UK is an integrated society! Not in practise it appears.

I think is little known fact in South India (Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh) India, a girl can marry her uncle or uncle's son and it is not considered as a incest. Marriages of cousins are very common too. That is amongst Tamils and Telugus.

In Kerala cousins marry too.

I remember knowing from an early age that I couldn't marry my cousin, in the same way that I couldn't marry my brother. If Pakistani children do not know this then they don't develop that 'shield' when they are young and feel no compunction about falling in love with their cousin. Arranged marriages are a different affair and there is simply no excuse for the elders to bring cousins together as man and wife with the well-documented knowledge medical understanding about the dangers to their offspring. I am definitely in favour of making it illegal - it might be the only way to combat these deeply entrenched customs.

Posters saying that in-breeding occurs in third-world countries are meaningless. Just because it takes place in less enlightened countries does not validate it in the UK. I would imagine that there is very little reliable data on the results of in-breeding in such countries and as they won't have the medical support the UK has, I would imagine that many of the infants affected, would die early on anyway.

I didn't say I agreed, just to put it in context and try not to stigmatise one community only for the fact that they have been looked at by the TV program.

It is legal in UK as well and happens here too...

I couldn't help but be really angry with the family that had the deaf and blind son AND then went on to have 2 daughters with the same problems! Surely, surely common sense would lead you to question if this happened to your first 2 children that maybe there was a problem that needed looking into before you went on to have more?!

I just think it is hideously irresponsible and actually quite neglectful to go on acting in this way. Those 3 children had very little quality of life and cost the NHS hundreds of thousands of £ a year.

And what a life for their parents, particularly their mother! It's an absolute but tragedy for all concerned. Why on earth wouldn't we outlaw it in this country to avoid such occurrences?

I am truly horrified that it's legal too just13. We know that taking crack harms you so we make it illegal, we know that driving at 80 mph on a residential street is dangerous so we're stopped from doing it.

Therefore, when we KNOW that cousin marriage increases the risk of some horrific genetic problems significantly I do feel it is societies responsibility to legislate against it and protect people from being forced into marriage with someone so closely related.