Category: News
Date: 16.11.2005
Printable version
A Labour MP has called for an end to the practice of cousin marriage after a Newsnight investigation reports that British Pakistanis are 13 times more likely to have children with recessive disorders than the general population [1].
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The same research [2] shows that British Pakistanis account for 3.4% of all births but have 30% of all British children with recessive disorders.
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Keighley MP Ann Cryer says: "As we address problems of smoking, drinking, obesity, we say it's a public health issue, and therefore we all have to get involved with it in persuading people to adopt a different lifestyle.
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"I think the same should be applied to this problem in the Asian community. They must adopt a different lifestyle.
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"They must look outside the family for husbands and wives for their young people."
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Mrs Cryer tells the 成人快手 TWO programme: "There is something very wrong going on.
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"I think the sooner we start to have a debate and we start to encourage the Asian community to address it themselves by saying we have to stop this tradition of first cousin marriages."
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It is estimated that at least 55% of British Pakistanis are married to first cousins [3] and the tradition is also common among some other South Asian communities and in some Middle Eastern countries.
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Mrs Cryer's constituency is the Bradford area, where local doctors estimate that three quarters of marriages in Bradford's Pakistani community are between first cousins.
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Dr Peter Corry, Consultant Paediatrician at Bradford Royal Infirmary, says his hospital sees so many recessive genetic illnesses that it has become a centre of excellence for the treatment of some of them.
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Dr Corry tells the programme they have identified about 140 different autosomal recessive disorders among local children. He estimates that a typical district would see 20 to 30.
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Birmingham Primary Care Trust estimates that one in ten of all children born to first cousin marriages in Birmingham's large Pakistani community either dies in infancy or goes on to suffer serious disability as a result of recessive genetic disorders.
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Recessive genetic illness is one of the main reasons for admission to the city's children's hospital.
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But, because cousin marriage has such a long history, raising these risks is sometimes interpreted as a challenge to the community's culture.
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The variant genes that cause recessive genetic illnesses tend to be very rare.
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In the general population the likelihood of a couple having the same variant gene is a hundred to one.
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In cousin marriages, if one partner has a variant gene the risk that the other has it too is far higher - more like one in eight.[4]
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Newsnight talks to Myra Ali, whose parents are first cousins and is against cousin marriage.
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She suffers from epidermolisis bulosa - a reccessive genetic condition which means her skin is really fragile and can blister very easily with a slight knock or tear.
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But, as Newsnight discovers, some within the Pakistani community reject the evidence of a link between cousin marriage and genetic illness.
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The programme reports on a campaign on the issue by Birmingham Primary Care Trust which raised awareness but was criticised by some sections of the city's Pakistani community.
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The report also shows that cousin marriages can be strong and enduring.
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Neila Butt is married to her first cousin Farooq and lives with him and their two children - Daneesh and Hikmar. Neila says she is glad she has married her cousin.
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She says: "You have an understanding, you have the same family history. When you talk about old times, either here or in Pakistan, you know who you're talking about.
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"It's just a nicer emotional feel. Family events are really nice because my in-laws and Farooq's in-laws are together and related."
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Notes to Editors
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Please credit any use of this material to 成人快手 Newsnight.
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Newsnight is 成人快手 TWO's flagship current affairs programme.
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On air since 1980, it's role is to be thought-provoking and informative, analysing complex issues in-depth with high quality and hard hitting films.
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It is watched by 6.5 million viewers a week.
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[1] Source: Paper by Darr and Modell published in 2002 - Genetic Counselling and customary consanguineous marriage. Nature Reviews: Genetics, Vol 3 March 2002.
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[2] As above.
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[3] Darr AR and Modell B (1989). The frequency of consanguineous marraige among British Pakistanis. Journal of Medial Genetics, Vol 25. Shaw (2000) and Bundy and Aslam's Birmingham Birth Study (1993).
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[4] Source: Professor Bernadette Modell, the chair of medical genetics at the Royal Free Hospital and UCL Medical School.
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