Posted on 08/16/2005 2:52:25 PM PDT by Alouette
After lowering infant mortality rates among Arabs in western Galilee through the reduction of neonatal infections, early detection and encouraging abortions of fetuses with major and lethal congenital defects, public health experts are now focusing on the last main cause of babies' deaths in this population: inbreeding.
Dr. Avshalom Strulov of the University of Haifa's Faculty of Social Welfare and Health Studies and of the Health Ministry's Northern District health office reports in the August issue of the Israel Medical Association Journal about efforts to discourage Arab first cousins and other close relatives from marrying. Such consanguineous marriages, he writes, "are not part of the Islamic religion" and are indeed harmful since they lead to the conception of fetuses with serious inherited diseases.
The district health office has initiated a project in areas with large Arab populations that includes study days for health personnel, initiation of reports against inbreeding in the Arabic-language mass media, and encouragement of Muslim religious leaders to declare in mosques that this practice is likely to produce defective children.
Most of the activity, however, recruits elementary and high-school teachers in the Arab sector who speak to pupils about the dangers of marrying close relatives. "The effect on the reduction of the rates of consanguineous marriages should be observable within years, and the effect on infant mortality within generations," Strulov predicts.
The three-pronged effort would further reduce the gap in infant mortality rates between the Jewish and Arab populations in Israel, he said. In 2002, the annual infant mortality rate was 4.0 per 1,000 live births among Jews and 9.0 among Arabs; in the Northern District, it was 5.4 among Jews and 7.8 among Arabs.
Strulov was appointed by the ministry nearly two decades ago as coordinator of a multi-professional and multi-organizational committee that aimed at reducing the gap in infant mortality between the two sectors as much as possible.
In the early Eighties, the rate among Arabs was 22.6 per 1,000 live births and half that among Jews.
The main causes of deaths of Arab babies in summer were acute gastrointestinal infections and diarrhea, and in winter, upper respiratory tract infections and hypothermia (low body temperature due to inadequate heating).
Information campaigns about preventing and treating both of these conditions, as well as better means for refrigeration and hygiene, brought these deaths almost down to zero.
Ultrasound facilities, doctors and subsidies by Clalit Health Services significantly increased the early detection of severe congenital defects in fetuses, most of whose mothers decided on an abortion.
The remaining major problem was consanguinity, said Strulov, and while progress on this took many years, movement was in the right direction.
If a couple from Saudi Arabia moved to California, would they still legally be considered brother and sister?
bump for later perusal and laughter
What's your explanation for a majority of the population of California and Massachusetts?
Judging from your ignorant comment, maybe you should examine your own family tree before throwing stones at others.
Is this some sort of Biblical slur?
The product of these abhorrent acts of sin were the Moabites and Ammonites, and they did not come to a good end. Lot's entire family is in the Bible as an example of sinful behavior.
I just find it interesting that God would pick them out, that's all.
Not my field, but I always thought that it was the hemophilia that weakened the royals of Europe, and that it was a spontaneous mutation, not a result of cousin marriage.
And wasn't there a problem with porphyria too, before that? Also inherited, though IIRC Victoria did not inherit that disorder.
They don't include the Rothschilds either.
It's Bush's fault.
Sandbillies! Bwaa ha haaa!
Loser
Inbreeding makes for Muslim problems.... can't say I'm shocked here
I thought it was the main cause of them being stuck in the 12th century. Or is that due to their religion?
No slur at all, just proof that the God of the Bible knows what He's talking about. The Bible reads like today's Headline News.
is this a joke? bump for later reading
If you haven't already found it:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1464567/posts
I am wondering about this myself...
Jimmy Carter, also. I am (yes, it's shameful) distantly related to him, and I have seen his family tree. His grandparents were first cousins with each other.
very good point.
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