In April of 2009, I published a list on 11 State Laws About Marrying Your Cousins, From Strictest to Loosest. Today, Professor Small believes changing attitudes to cousin marriage among young Muslims, tighter immigration controls on bringing spouses into the UK, and efforts to inform families sensitively about the health consequences may, one day, reduce the disabilities and stillbirths. And when they are tragically born with disabilities, it is taxpayers who are left to pick up the huge costs of their NHS treatment, which can run into millions over a lifetime. If you inherit one variant gene you will not fall ill or die. Professor Neil Small, of the University of Bradford, was a researcher in a project called Born In Bradford. However, Hiba’s father is unsure. Some couples already expecting a baby with an inherited problem are offered a termination. Health officials in the multi-cultural borough of Redbridge said one in five of the 160 child deaths investigated between 2008 and 2016 were ‘attributable to consanguineous relationships’. He sits on a sofa motionless, mumbling repeatedly to his father that he wants the sky to turn blue. Yet to set out these truths is to invoke the fury of the politically correct brigade, who refuse to consider anything that might intrude on their carefully constructed fantasy of Utopian multi-culturalism.’. ‘The whole issue is fraught. Yet despite the dangers — and the huge cost to the NHS — according to the BBC, it is estimated that 55 per cent of couples of Pakistani heritage in the UK are in cousin marriages. JSTOR is part of ITHAKA, a not-for-profit organization helping the academic community use digital technologies to preserve the scholarly record and to advance research and teaching in sustainable ways. The genes in common or shared in double first cousin/uncle-niece are 25%, first cousins 12.5% and second cousins 6.25%. I learned that if you if you marry a first cousin, the risk of a child developing a birth defect goes from 2% to 5%. This disease can kill, and in its severest form is treatable only by a lifetime of hospital transfusions. The panel says this is an ‘over-representation’ since the proportion of children under 18 who are of South Asian heritage in the Bradford area is just 37 per cent. NHS doctors and nurses are reluctant to speak out for fear of being branded racist. A community nurse working in Redbridge told me that he has helped to care for many of the disabled children. The couples who visit Dr Saggar’s clinics are ‘very often Muslims, but not exclusively’. approximately 1 in 16,000) is not too serious. The Queen pushed to breaking point: Her Majesty has showered Harry with affection and indulgence in a bid... Farewell to the holier than thou couple devoted to self service: JAN MOIR says goodbye to Prince Harry and... 'Surely Mr and Ms would be more appropriate?' Seven years ago, leading geneticist Professor Steve Jones, of University College London, controversially warned that what he called ‘inbreeding’ in Britain’s Muslim communities threatened the health of children. The debate between first cousin marriages remains open to interpretation. The Problem With Incest Evolution, morality, and the politics of abortion. Luckily, 18-year-old Hiba Maroof from Bradford is increasingly aware of the dangers as she ponders whether to marry a cousin. As Dyer writes, British researchers formally crunched the numbers and determined that for any given individual, with much variation, a marriage between first cousins roughly doubles the rate of unmasking compared to nonrelative marriages (~6% instead of ~3%). In fact, two of his six wives, Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard were both cousins. A lot of people who marry but aren’t related have ‘kids with autism’, he reasons. Many children who die, or whose health is seriously damaged, are born to British-Pakistani families just like Hiba’s, which itself has a genetic history of acute deafness, and the blood disorder thalassaemia. In British Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities, marriage between cousins is designed to strengthen the family and keep wealth intact. Even more worryingly, the number of children damaged by consanguinity is predicted to increase as the birth rate in ethnic communities goes up. Back home, Hiba deals with the problem in a practical way. Centuries-old practice of aristocrats' titles being inherited only by their male heirs could... England international and Premier League star 'hooked on sleeping pills and mixes them with vodka at illegal... One of Britain's youngest Imams, 26, says 'there isn't a single word' in the Quran to justify 'ramming your... Now that's hot desking! For her part, Minaz muses that ‘God may have chosen’ to put them in this situation. She struggles to have a conversation with the two boys, university students who appear to like the idea of marrying her and coming to live in Britain. A young Muslim man called Ali wrote recently on one: ‘The reason couples inbreed is because their parents want their children’s earnings to remain in the family. Unmasking is less common in highly heterozygous populations, so according to Bittles and Black, as cousin marriage declines, there should be corresponding increases in human health at a population level. Many cousin couples can’t pass on genetic diseases, since they’re infertile. It showed that for every 100 babies born to unrelated couples, around three have a genetic ailment, while for every 100 babies born to closely related couples, six do so. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert depicted in 1846. © ITHAKA. They are taken there for fresh air by council workers from special schools and day-care centres. He has explained in interviews about the study: ‘It is not our intention to counsel couples about whom they choose to marry, but we do want to ensure that couples are aware of any risks so that they can make informed choices.’. With all this in mind, it is difficult not to conclude that though the intentions may be understandable, marrying your cousin is a tradition that can come at a high price for all concerned, especially for those children condemned to an early death, or a life of profound disability. In cousin marriages, that can rise to one in eight because those who are related to each other are more likely to carry the same faults in their DNA. Of those that gave us figures, it was revealed that 95 children of consanguineous unions have died in these 14 areas alone over the past five years. In the documentary, Hiba visits two cousins who married each other — Iftacan and his wife Minaz, who live in Newcastle. These disorders are caused by variant genes. ‘They will never be out of nappies. ‘They often go on to have more disabled children by playing Russian roulette with genetics.’. Thousands more children of consanguineous marriages survive, but with appalling physical or mental problems. One of the problems in the debate is that many figures get bandied about but really good data on the health effects of first-cousin marriage is lacking. They are responsible for three percent of all births, but produce just under a third of all British children with such health problems. In the past, a consultant paediatrician called Dr Peter Corry at Bradford Royal Infirmary, said he and his team had identified 140 different gene disorders among local children. 39 (2010), pp. In many states, it is illegal for first cousins to get married. The objections are ostensibly based on the risk of genetic problems. He points out: "it is not possible that cousin marriage has problems and that the Prophet didn't forbid it". Black tackled consanguineous marriage on a global scale in a 2010 paper in Annual Review of Anthropology. The problem is that it leads to tribalism. Trouble is, cousins share one set of grandparents. The problem is that babies born in cousin marriages can suffer what are called ‘recessive’ genetic disorders, associated with severe disability and early death. Thankfully, this taboo subject is increasingly debated among young Asians on internet forums. ‘It is rude and racist to say these people don’t want to learn. If cousin marriage continues to remain popular in the community the later generations are going to have even greater health problems because of higher inbreeding coefficients (due to repeated cousin marriages across the generations within the family). Could drone pollinators help secure our future food supply? Research from the project was published in medical bible the Lancet in 2013. The problem is that genetic deficiencies from consanguineous marriages is taxing European healthcare systems. You may unsubscribe at any time by clicking on the provided link on any marketing message. A first cousin marriage increases the risk of inheriting phenylketonuria 7.2 times, but with alkaptonuria the risk increases 63 times. The practice has been legal in Britain for more than 400 years, but is considered one of society’s last taboos. You go to any such family and there will be four or five children, at least one or two of whom will have some health problem. Even if she opts for a cousin marriage, this means she should be able to guarantee that she will not have a disabled baby. But, believe me, like any parents, these people don’t want to have an abnormal child if they have a choice. ‘Except for my own research on the internet, I have never heard or been told about the dangers from national TV or my family elders.’. WEDNESDAY, April 4, 2018 (HealthDay News) -- Children born to parents who are cousins have a significant risk for developing a mood disorder -- such as depression or anxiety -- when they grow up, a new study suggests. Hiba, single and a student at the University of Leeds, faces a common dilemma. 331, No. BMJ: British Medical Journal, Vol. It was set up to discover why so many of the city’s children die or have disabilities, and tracked 13,500 babies, of all ethnic backgrounds, born at Bradford Royal Infirmary between March 2007 and December 2010. The problem is that babies born in cousin marriages can suffer what are called ‘recessive’ genetic disorders, associated with severe disability and early death. From a genetics standpoint, the link between these cousin marriages and increased risk of genetic disorders in the offspring of such marriages has … According to a report for the BBC’s Newsnight, British Pakistanis are 13 times more likely to have children with genetic disorders than the general population. ‘Children shouldn’t be born disabled if it can be avoided,’ she says in the TV programme about the issue. Iftacan says it may just be the luck of the draw. If, however, a child inherits the same variant gene from each of its related parents, it is at higher risk of a health problem. Marrying a cousin is usually considered a bad idea, because inbreeding can lead to harmful genetic conditions. The Perseverance mission to Mars represents a considerable step forward for the space program. ‘They often put the baby in the corner of the room, try to ignore it, and struggle to get on with their lives because there is nothing else they can do. The secret shoot that sowed Ghislaine Maxwell's downfall: She gave her father these unpublished photos for... Royal fury at Harry and Meghan's 'horribly disrespectful' parting shot: Palace shock at couple's churlish... ROBERT HARDMAN: As Harry and Meghan enter a royal wilderness like another couple so many years ago... Is the... What the royal statements say... and what they REALLY mean: How 'deeply disappointed' Queen's announcement... Princess Anne is 'poised to take over' and succeed Prince Harry as Captain General of the Royal Marines -... Not enough royals to go round! Hiba goes to see two potential suitors — her young male cousins — in Pakistan. She said: ‘It’s not fair to the children or to the NHS which has to treat them. 193-200, C1, 201-207. The Claude Glass Revolutionized the Way People Saw Landscapes, A New Civil Rights Movement, a New Journal. In 2005, Owen Dyer reported in BMJ that “A Labour MP has called for a public debate on the genetic risks of marriages between first cousins in Britain’s Pakistani community, after reports of an unusually high rate of autosomal recessive disorders among children near her constituency. Ann Cryer, MP for Keighley in West Yorkshire, said on the BBC television programme Newsnight: ‘We have to stop this tradition of first cousin marriages.'”. Robin Bennett, a University of Washington researcher, has said that much hostility towards married cousins constitutes discrimination. For Hiba comes from a British-Pakistani community, in which around 60 per cent of mothers are married to their cousins. Because of the potential health problems with cousin marriages, that are summarized in my article through the Charsadda tragedy Since cousin marriage was a common practice in pre-Islamic Arabia. In Yorkshire and Humber (embracing Bradford, Kirklees, Leeds, Sheffield, and Rotherham) doctors are having to deal with 600 cases a year — a number they expect to rise to 2,400 a year by 2031, according to documents published by public health officials in the area. We should be sensitively informing them, not restricting who they marry.’. ‘Effectively, we have imported a medieval convention that should have no place in modern society.’. The 'secondary victims of Covid': Doctors say ambulances delays during surge in coronavirus cases before... Education unions join forces to try to block the return of ALL pupils to school on March 8 telling Boris... Wales points the way for Boris Johnson to lift England's lockdown as Mark Drakeford hints holiday homes... Britain's Covid outbreak continues to shrink: UK records another 12,027 cases plunging by 20% in a week and... NHS says over-50s without underlying conditions SHOULDN'T be getting Covid jabs yet and appointments should... Matt Hancock broke the law by failing to reveal coronavirus PPE contracts worth billions of pounds', High... JOHN HUMPHRYS: War of the Astroturf that sums up Boris Johnson's dilemma over lockdown.