To determine the prevalence of consanguineous marriages and estimate the effects of consanguinity on reproductive behaviour and mortality, household and hospital-based surveys were conducted in 11 cities in the Pakistan province of Punjab between 1979 and 1985. The 9520 women interviewed reported 44,474 pregnancies, with data collected on maternal and paternal ages at marriage, abortions/miscar...

1 have responded to the recurrent debates in the UK media about the pros and cons of cousin marriage? 2–5 He would surely have examined the key facts (Table 1), as well as exposing any dishonest tricks of an argument; he would also have pointed out that it is wise to avoid language which alienates some participants. A senior UK scientist recently spoke about first cousin marriages 2 , and refer...

In February, 2008, British environment minister Phil Woolas sparked a major row in the United Kingdom when he attributed the high rate of birth defects in the Pakistani community to the practice of marriages between first cousins. “If you have a child with your cousin, the likelihood is there’ll be a genetic problem,” he told the Sunday Times [1]. Although a Muslim activist group demanded that ...

Marriage in many traditional societies often concerns the institutionalized exchange of reproductive partners among groups of kin. Such exchanges most often involve cross-cousins-marriage with the child of a parent's opposite-sex sibling-but it is unclear who benefits from these exchanges. Here we analyze the fitness consequences of marrying relatives among the Yanomamö from the Amazon. When in...

Two sisters and a first cousin presented with rigid spine and facio-scapulo-peroneal muscle atrophy. The patients belonged to a family with two first-cousin marriages. Electromyography, muscle and nerve biopsy showed neurogenic muscle atrophy without peripheral nerve involvement. Follow up did not show progression of the disease. This is the first observation of an association of neurogenic fac...

consanguineous marriage is strongly favored in many large human populations. in the most parts of south asia, consanguineous marriage account for 20%  to over 50% of the general population. the effect of consanguinity on hereditary deafness has been well studied and documented. many authors have suggested that approximately one half  of sensory neural hearing loss in children can be attributed ...

BACKGROUND/AIM Why has the apparently high rate of cousin marriage among Bradford Pakistanis been sustained, 50 years since Pakistani migration to Britain began? METHODS A review of the anthropological literature on Pakistani migration and settlement, British Pakistani marriage patterns and the phenomenon of transnational marriage. RESULTS British Pakistanis are diverse in regional origins ...