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.
It explains a helluva lot more than just their high rate of infant mortality.
Well that explains it...
How do you separate the men from the boys in Saudi Arabia
with a crowbar...
1. "Bible Scholars" Bwahahahaha. I don't have much respect for them -- all have one agenda or another. Some I agree with, some not, but all suspect.
2. That said, see my post above, which sets out Leviticus 18 (the forbidden list). First Cousins are not necessarily on the absolute no-go list, unless one considers them part of the catch-all of "close relatives" (which some "Bible Scholars" do).
Which animals?
..........................................
From a property standpoint, first-cousin marriages make sense. Over time, it tends to consolidate land or business holdings among a smaller group of heads-of-household, with each subgroup enjoying a larger share of the total.
Contrast this with the Germanic system of exogenous marriages and equal distribution of property among male heirs. In that situation, what starts out as a good-sized farm ends up, after a couple of fertile generations, with each family holding barely enough land to bury a cat. (Leading directly to the Viking Age, and the rest is history.)
If you inbreed, are you expempt from honor killing?
"Which animals?"
Checking to see if you're OK?
No. Actually belief in the Bible began thousands of years before Arkansas and Mississippi even existed. The Arabs, on the other hand, have been inbreeding since the advent of recorded history and continue to do so to this very day. Tigers in the wild instinctively understand that inbreeding destroys the pride and so the young males are ostracized and forced to find their mates in other prides. The Arabs have yet to figure this out.
I'm worried about my fa-a-a-a-ahther...
I missed this one. Where is it??
Thank you for pointing out an obviously ignorant idea. I had to scroll to see if anyone had replied to that stupid comment before making a rebuttle of my own. I must say that you put it better (and more friendly) than I would have.
Now we know those "honor killings" are REALLY about covering up a crime of raping one's sister or daughter. Disgusting people.
Lister: Of course I do, a singing group, acappella... [sings:] "You are the sunshine of my life, oooh, that's why I'll always be your…"
Lister notices Rimmer's face...
Lister: They're nothing to do with singing, are they? Holly lied to me, didn't he?
Rimmer nods
Lister: Oh, he was taking the smeg.
Rimmer: Oh Listy! Listy, Listy, Listy!
Lister: Well go on then, what've I signed up for?
Rimmer: In the 19th Century, when miners went down a pit, they'd lower a canary down first in a little cage…
Lister: What, and make them do some mining? They were sick in the nineteenth century weren't they, eh?! I mean, how much coal can a little canary get?
Rimmer: …and if the atmosphere was noxious, as it frequently was, guess what the canary did.
Lister: Complained to the foreman?
Rimmer: It died Listy, the canary's job was to go into the most dangerous, unpleasant and smeggy situations…
Lister bangs his head on the table.
Rimmer: …and see if it could stay alive. Then they'd know if it was safe to send in the important people.
Lister: I'm gonna kill him!
Rimmer: How come you've never heard of the Canaries? They've got recruitment posters all over the men's bogs! How come you've not seen them?
Lister: When I'm in the men's toilets in prison, Rimmer, I tend not to look around, y'know what I'm saying!? It's like playing golf. I concentrate on my grip, keep my eye on the ball and try not to veer off to the side.
Rimmer: The canaries! You know what they say it's supposed to stand for? Convict's Army Nearly All Retarded Inbred Evil Sheep-shaggers! They haven't got an X chromosome to share between them!
It is kind of a depressing thought. Honoring one's ancestors? I don't want to honor that one.
"...encouraging abortions of fetuses with major and lethal congenital defects..."
These deaths don't count in the infant mortality numbers?
"You'd be surprised at the number of States that permit first cousins to marry."
There was a story about an Arkansas couple getting a divorce - after the judge granted the divorce the guy says 'Judge, I've got just one question - does this mean she'll still be my sister?"
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