Health agency sparks outrage after citing 'benefits' of first-cousin marriage in bizarre report
Joe Yates
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Experts have slammed a health agency for encouraging 'incest' in a bizarre report outlining the 'benefits' of first-cousin marriages.
The UK's National Health Service (NHS) released a paper last week detailing the advantages of marrying inside the family before taking the blog down and apologizing following public backlash.
It was posted on NHS England’s Genomics Education Programme website on Monday last week (September 22), citing that marriage between first cousins offers 'stronger extended family support systems and economic advantages'.
Incredibly, one expert who was quoted in the document has said that it was 'very substantially factually based', despite it posing a greater risk of infants being born with birth defects.
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Professor Sam Oddie, a neonatologist at Bradford Teaching Hospitals, told BMJ: “My reading of the blog is that the content is extremely uncontentious and very substantially factually based. I’m unaware of the reasons why the blog was taken down.
“I don’t consider that any of the comments that have been made in response to it in the media are in any way reasonable or grounded in fact.”
According to the extensive Born in Bradford study, which is one of the largest medical trials of its kind, children from first-cousin marriages are at a greater risk of having speech and language difficulties.
Parents of more than 13,000 babies enrolled their kids onto the trial between 2007 and 2010, with researchers having followed them closely from childhood. More than one in six participants have parents who are first cousins - primarily from Bradford's Pakistani community.
It found that the probability of offspring from first-cousin marriages reaching a good stage of development was reduced compared to those born from families that are not related, and also visit the doctor more.
It also found that the risk of being born with a birth defect is doubled compared to those with parents that were not previously in the same family tree.
Marrying your first cousin is permitted by law in the UK, while in the US 19 states allow it, with a further 24 outlawing first-cousin marriage, while some having restrictions in place - like in Illinois, where both must be over 50, and others permit it if one partner is sterile.
Despite the UK allowing the marriage of first cousins, Dr Patrick Nash - a religious law expert and the director of the Pharos Foundation social science research group in Oxford - has labeled it 'incest', and slammed the NHS for its 'truly dismaying' guidance.
“Cousin marriage is incest, plain and simple, and needs to be banned with the utmost urgency - there is no ‘balance’ to be struck between this cultural lifestyle choice and the severe public health implications it incurs," he told the Telegraph.
“This official article is deeply misleading and should be retracted with an apology so that the public is not misled by omission and half-truths.”
In a statement issued to UNILAD, the health service noted that the blog was never meant to be posted.
They said: "This article should not have been published, and we have removed it. The NHS recognises the scientific evidence that there can be increased risk of children having certain conditions when parents are consanguineous, and the health service seeks to advise and inform patients of these risks in a respectful way.”