Is there any danger?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail....inbreeding-risks.html

I posted this news story yesterday, but for some reason it was removed.

Because I believe this is a story that needs addressing and already Former environment minister Phil Woolas was rebuked by Downing Street in 2008, and now also Professor Steve Jones, from University College London, for raising this issue.

So this time it might be safer not to make any comments myself, but leave it to others to air their views.

[Huderon]

ummmm I know it's not as simple as that as far as the social and cultural aspect of it goes, and in Pakistan the first cousin marriages tend to happen within a social class - if your family get rich enough, you marry your children off to the children of others with a similar social standing, not to their cousins of lower standing and wealth.

The report specifically refers to Muslims in a city where there have been nationally reported problems in the past. But first cousin marriages are allowed in this country and could happen within any group, so why focus on one particular group ?

The bit in the report about ///Other research has found that children of first cousins are ten times more likely to have recessive genetic disorders and face deafness, blindness and infant mortality./// is what made me wonder, and all figures I could find are nowhere near that level.

I'm also somewhat suspicious about using the link of family names to suggest inbreeding in Northern Ireland. Think about it this way - a family name goes with the males when they marry (the woman usually takes her husband's name on marriage after all). So a family with a unique name has 2 boys, they in turn get married and have 2 boys each, who in their turn get married and have 2 boys apiece and so on. In each generation, the boys do not marry anyone who is related to them. In around 200 years (allowing 25 years for a generation) you'll have 250 or so families with the same name, and nowhere in that time has there been any inbreeding.

And it's that kind of thing that makes me wonder if Professor Jones has been quoted accurately and in context. If he has, he's stirring it, if he hasn't, someone else is.

[Mosaic]

Living in a town with similar population profile to that in the article, the really noticeable result of Pakistani immigrant social trends is that integration has been slowed down, as most families continue to have one non-english speaking parent. This parent often never learns English and so cannot integrate and is in turn more rather than less likely to perpetuate similar arranged marriages for their children.
The close-cousin marriage practice is not religious, so the article is incorrect to ascribe it to Islam. It is a matter of choice and is enforced by the families concerned.