culture of 1st cousin marriages causing birth defects in immigrants from rural pakistan.

[hecate]

the story is here

Ok, well, of course, if you restrict your gene pool, obviously over generations you are going to run into problems - that is a proven fact, fair enough.

I PMSL... how could he say it, directed specifically at people from Pakistan, with a straight face???

Let's take a look at what most people consider to be the 'indiginous population' of britain - that is, those who have been here for many generation.

Look first at the british royal family. I can't THINK of a more in-bred group - can you?

And the aristocracy - generation after generation of inter-marriages to secure estates, merge estates...pretty inbred there too.

And now lets go to rural britain. Bob marries Carol from next door and they set up home across the street. They have 2 kids, both of whom marry boys from the next street and set up home across town. each have a couple of kids, who marry folks they met at school. Their kids go to the same school their grandparents did and marry the children of their grandparents school friends. fast forward 10 generations of this and they all look like this with their knuckles dragging on the floor. People who move into the village are called 'outsiders' until they've been there 15 generations.

And then someone turns round and has a go at people from Pakistan because they intermarry.

Seriously. Come ON.

lol hecate, that would be sooo pervy.

i agree, the tone of the article is sooo wrong.

I used to work in a school in Slough and there were lots of children with skin problems - basically, patches of skin without any colour. None of these were any more serious than needing year-round sunscreen, but I have seen documentaries on TV where the condition was extremely debilitating.

Seems sensible to raise the issue. And it is particularly pertinent to some Asian communities. If we are too embarrassed to say so, the people who need to know (so they come forward for genetic testing) won't hear about it, will they?

Why is okay to refer to the welsh as inbred but not the Pakistani Community??? It's still Racism and you should be be ashamed of yourselves.

Having worked with asian children with disabilities for a number of years I can confirm that from my own observations there seems to be a higher level of genetic disorder amongst these ethnic groups.

One mum explained to me that in pakistan having a child with a disability is considered to be a very negative thing and reflects badly on the family, her husband visits occasionally but now has another family back in Pakistan. I think this also happens quite alot in other families with children with disabilities.

Basically, this is an issue for debate as the cost of caring for children with high levels of disability is vast in terms of hospital care, special schooling, OT's Physios, SALTS, adaptations, homecare, transport solutions and disability benefits.

As a politican, Ann Cryer is right to raise this issue so that additional resources can be targetted into areas where this is happening and that in the long term, families can be educated about the risks of genetic disorders.

TBH, I think that ALL first cousin marriages should be banned, we nopw KNOW the damage that can be caused by such close relations having children and if we can stop this then we should!

(though must be said, does remind me of a dreadful jk i heard a while ago...

how do you circumsize a bloke from (insert town name here) kick his sister in the jaw

My Dh's parents are 1st cousins, doesn't seem to have done him any harm.

Sandyballs, it depends on whether or not their parents were first cousins and their grandparents also. In the end, if you don't carry a recessive gene it's not going to be a problem at all.

There was a really interesting documentary about this on Radio4 last week. It still might be avaliable as a podcast.

I've also worked amongst South Asian populations (not Pakastani) where cousin marriage is the norm. There is definitly a higher incidence of birth defects. However, let's not forget Queen Victoria's haemophillia gene which would have eventually laid waste to the royal families of Europe if revolutions hadn't got to them first.

I worked with a family in this situation. The parents were first cousins and one parent on each side were cousins. Four out of the 5 children had special needs.

The Dad was a doctor and colleagues despaired of him because he had ignored their suggestions that he should limit the number of children they were having. His wife was v worn down because she was left with the burden of looking after the children. He certainly wasn't hands on.

The point is, these children weren't just a little slow, they had complex special needs.