[ValenB4]

I read an article in National Geographic a few years ago about Iraq. It said that the amount of inbreeding is pretty high throughout the Muslim world. Between substandard medine and a general lack of cultural empathy, one can only imagine the sad lives of those with congenital problems.

[alnitak]

The technical name is "consanguineous marriage", consanguineous meaning "of the same blood", that is, marriage to a relative.

Intermarriage is common throughout Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, although the rate of marriages between first cousins, second cousins and other relatives in the Persian Gulf region, estimated at more than 55 percent in Saudi Arabia, is considered high by world standards.

Here is an article from the Washington Post hosted at Cornell University about the situation in Saudi Arabia.

Pinar Ozand, a Turkish doctor who has led research into genetic errors at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre here, said problems that occur once in every thousand births in a robustly mixed gene pool are being found as frequently as once in every 50 births in Saudi Arabia.

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

http://www.parapundit.com/archives/000113.html