Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Muslim outrage as professor warns first-cousin marriages increase risk of birth defects
Daily Mail ^ | May 30, 2011 | Tom Kelly

Posted on 08/17/2013 5:08:58 AM PDT by grundle

Inbreeding among British Muslims is threatening the health of their children, a leading geneticist warned yesterday.

Professor Steve Jones, from University College London, said the common practice in Islamic communities for cousins to marry each other increased the risk of birth defects.

‘There may be some evidence that cousins marrying one another can be harmful,’ he told an audience at the Hay Festival.

‘We should be concerned about that as there can be a lot of hidden genetic damage. Children are much more likely to get two copies of a damaged gene.

‘Bradford is very inbred. There is a huge amount of cousins marrying each other there.’

Studies have shown that 55 per cent of British Pakistanis are married to first cousins – and in Bradford, this rises to 75 per cent.

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.

But Prof Jones’s comments provoked anger among some Muslim groups yesterday.

Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of the Ramadhan Foundation, which promotes the image of Muslims in Britain, said: ‘I know many Muslims who have married their cousins and none of them have had a problem with their children.

‘Obviously, we don’t want any children to be born disabled who don’t need to be born disabled, so I would advise genetic screening before first cousins marry.

'But I find Steve Jones’s comments unworthy of a professor. Using language like “inbreeding” to describe cousins marrying is completely inappropriate and further demonises Muslims.

(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: islam; muslim; muslims
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-78 next last
To: grundle

The bearded savages have done a good job of demonizing themselves.


21 posted on 08/17/2013 5:33:14 AM PDT by I want the USA back
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Sherman Logan
If it were as harmful as some claim, one would expect the damage to be much greater by now than it apparently is.

If this is not tongue-in-cheek, I just have to ask if you've seen the state of the Muslim world?

22 posted on 08/17/2013 5:33:58 AM PDT by EricT. (Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. Big brother is watching you.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Sacajaweau

Well, back in the 19th century, lots of children died young. My grandmother (born 1888) was one of eight. Three died as infants and one in his early 30s. Her parents were definitely not related and as far as I know, neither were her grandparents. Milk fever was probably the cause. If a woman became pregnant while she was nursing (a common occurrence) the rules were she had to quit nursing because it would harm both babies. Not true but that was the rule then among the better educated. So living on the prairie, unpasturized milk, diarrhea .... baby dies at about 18 months.


23 posted on 08/17/2013 5:34:42 AM PDT by Mercat
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: AppyPappy
As a matter of fact, my family tree is so messed up, I entered into a genealogy site and it knocked the website down for two days.

It is early, but I think that will be the reply of the day!

24 posted on 08/17/2013 5:35:42 AM PDT by VRW Conspirator (Producing Talk Show Prep since 1998.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Sherman Logan

“If it were as harmful as some claim, one would expect the damage to be much greater by now than it apparently is.”

Have you noticed that Muslims are somewhat unstable and like to put suicide vests on there kids and go around killing innocent people?

Normal folks don’t tend to do that... Perhaps the last thousand years of inbreeding is part of the answer.


25 posted on 08/17/2013 5:40:21 AM PDT by babygene ( .)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: grundle

Hopefully they will inbreed themselves out of existence.


26 posted on 08/17/2013 5:41:59 AM PDT by freedumb2003 (US Military's anti-Christianity: Moral slavery is slavery nonetheless)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: VRW Conspirator
That reminds me.. Islamists are banned from genealogy sites. Their inquires put the search into an infinite loop.

(I know there's a big difference between Muslims and Islamists.)

27 posted on 08/17/2013 5:46:53 AM PDT by WilliamofCarmichael (If modern America's Man on Horseback is out there, Get on the damn horse already!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: grundle

Marrying your first cousin is, as I understand it, biologically the same as marrying your half sister.


28 posted on 08/17/2013 5:47:27 AM PDT by babygene ( .)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Sherman Logan
I wonder how legitimate these concerns are. Muslims in many areas have been doing this for literally centuries.

If it were as harmful as some claim, one would expect the damage to be much greater by now than it apparently is.

So you think a people who are constantly angry at others, think nothing of killing people and cutting their heads off if they disagree with their way of life and who believe they have the right to kill their wives and daughters simply because they don't approve of something they are doing, are perfectly fine mentally?

Too me, the whole Muslim life style screams lunatic and one way they got there was through inbreeding. I a not saying that if first cousins married something drastic would show up in the first generation but after centuries of the practice mental defects are bound to show up, and I think Muslims are living, breathing proof of this guys statements.

29 posted on 08/17/2013 5:47:33 AM PDT by calex59
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Mercat
I'm a hundred years before your 1888 grandma...the parents that intermarried were born c 1760. It was just so very noticeable among the other deaths.

Unpasteurized milk....hell my mom (b. 1917) and the whole town drank it warm from the cow....made their own butter and constantly cooked with it. No one died.

30 posted on 08/17/2013 5:47:42 AM PDT by Sacajaweau
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: AppyPappy

If I’d stayed on the family homestead, I’d have had to travel 50 miles to find someone who wasn’t a cousin to some degree.

That’s what comes from families spending 10 generations in the same place, and having 10+ kids per generation.

My grandmother had 60 first cousins. My mother had hundreds of second cousins. I don’t even want to think about how many third cousins I have. (I dated one, in high school, despite living 1000 miles away. We didn’t realize it until we both went back to visit the family for Thanksgiving.)


31 posted on 08/17/2013 5:47:43 AM PDT by jdege
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: freedumb2003
Hopefully they will inbreed themselves out of existence.

That was my first thought. The inbreeding in some of the Asian countries (Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc) may explain some of the really strange birth defects--more conjoined twins; girls with four arms and two legs; and some of the other strangeness.

32 posted on 08/17/2013 5:49:12 AM PDT by madison10
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: Sherman Logan
I wonder how legitimate these concerns are. Muslims in many areas have been doing this for literally centuries.

I think the current regressive state of the character and intelligence on display by most, maybe all, muslim dominated nations and cultures validates the finding that inbreeding isn't harmless.

Muslim societies aren't exactly hotbeds of innovation, progress and intellectual development.


33 posted on 08/17/2013 5:51:29 AM PDT by Iron Munro (To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize - Voltaire)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Sherman Logan
Given the presence of some heritable genetic malady or mutation it greatly increases the risk of children with that malady or maladies, particularly with the X chromosome in consanguineous marriages. If both male and female have that X chromosome, female children will have the malady or mutation with both X chromosomes. Males fare little better having just one X chromosome.

That said, some recessive traits are not harmful and some could even be deemed desirable, so it's not entirely the genetic train wreck across the board that it's depicted as being. If you know anything about animal husbandry and breeding, desirable traits are “fixed” in a line by doing just that. Problem is, undesirable ones get “fixed” as well but these are culled. Brutal but that's how it's done. Remember that next time you walk into somebody’s house and are startled at the resemblance, between the person standing in front of you and the portrait of great, great granddad over the mantle, lol.

Almost anyone with an old family line remaining in one place for centuries is going to find an example or two of first cousin marriage, the family tree branching back in upon itself, particularly in rural or frontier areas. There just weren't that many potential mates and people did what they do, with marriage being the honorable way to deal with the inevitable outcome. A few instances has little to no impact upon the intelligence or genetic health of the line as a whole, and what effects there are are lost in a generation with marriage to an unrelated line, “new blood.”

Royals did it, wealthy families here did it to keep money and/or land from being broken up outside the family. It wasn't always a sign of ignorance, it was done for practical reasons.

34 posted on 08/17/2013 5:52:06 AM PDT by RegulatorCountry
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Cloverfarm

I used to drive for Trailways and had a lot of Amish passengers. There was a very high percentage of children with defects.


35 posted on 08/17/2013 5:53:16 AM PDT by CrazyIvan (I'm so conservative I won't even wear progressive bifocals.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: madison10

>>The inbreeding in some of the Asian countries (Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc) may explain some of the really strange birth defects—more conjoined twins; girls with four arms and two legs; and some of the other strangeness.<<

Clearly islam is a defect resulting from inbreeding.


36 posted on 08/17/2013 5:53:32 AM PDT by freedumb2003 (US Military's anti-Christianity: Moral slavery is slavery nonetheless)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies]

To: grundle

The UK Muslims are upset that someone finally called them on their 1,400 years of inbreeding? Gosh, talk about the obvious. Inbreeding certainly accounts for instabilities in the Muslim psyche.


37 posted on 08/17/2013 5:58:28 AM PDT by MasterGunner01
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Sherman Logan

There are people who argue that inbreeding over centuries plays a major role in the stunted and twisted emotional state of muslims in many areas.

To say that consanguinity has no effect of any kind on health, both mental and physical, is simply absurd. It has been confirmed that it is harmful. There is a reason consanguinity is taboo both by culture and law in nearly all human cultures, though not all.


38 posted on 08/17/2013 6:01:00 AM PDT by rlmorel (Silence: The New Hate Speech)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: grundle

It is very easy to see the result of inbreeding. We have over 1500 years of it for these two-footed rats. Not hard at all to see.


39 posted on 08/17/2013 6:03:14 AM PDT by Gaffer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: grundle

Do some searches with terms like Middle East Consanguinity Islam.

This has been well known for decades.


40 posted on 08/17/2013 6:03:42 AM PDT by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-78 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson