Free Republic

Can you imagine if a guest on Joy Reid’s show mocked Mohammed for having married a cousin? Or proposed a ban on immigration by Pakistani Muslims because over 50% of them marry first cousins, something that has caused serious health problems for their children? Or said that people who hire someone who married a cousin are unfit to lead? Reid would surely have shut such a person down, as is her habit when it comes to guests saying things she finds objectionable. Yet on Reid’s MSNBC show today, guest Tiffany Cross, head of The Beat DC, said: “The fact that...

Reuters) - The secret marriage this year of a 96-year-old Virginia woman and a 95-year-old man has drawn the scrutiny of a judge, who has ruled the marriage may be illegal, a lawyer said on Tuesday. Judge James Clark of the Alexandria Circuit Court ruled this month that the marriage between Eddie Harrison and Edith Hill may not be legally binding and ordered Hill's attorney, Jessica Niesen, to investigate it. The legality of the marriage surfaced during a custodial dispute over who should care for Hill, who was ruled legally incapacitated in 2011. Hill's granddaughter, Rebecca Wright, and daughter Patricia...

My mum... was the first girl to live beyond childhood. Five of her sisters died as babies or toddlers. It was not until many years later that anyone worked out why so many children died and three boys were born deaf... Today there is no doubt among us that this tragedy occurred because my grandparents were first cousins.... [snip] In the UK more than 50 per cent of British Pakistanis marry their cousins.. ... the practice is on the rise and also common among East African, Middle-Eastern and Bangladeshi communities... the children of first cousins are ten times more likely...

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,...

A nationwide screening of newborn babies has brought to light high incidence of genetic disorders in the Kingdom compared to Western countries.This was disclosed to Arab News by Dr. Stephen R.Schroeder, executive director of Prince Salman Center for Disability Research (PSCDR). He said preliminary screening of 10,000-15,000 babies in Riyadh, Jeddah, Qassim and Abha has shown that these genetic disorders could have been the result of consanguineous marriages.According to the principal investigators, Dr. Colin Hodgkinson and Dr.Vandana Bharucha, the incidence of genetic disorders among children occurs at a rate that is between five and 40 times higher than in many...