Blimey I wasn't aware it was as high as that

[vetran]

This has been randomly brought up for decades.

I suspect the best way to explain it to people regardless of ethnicity is to tell and explain to them, with pictures of paintings, the history of the European royals.

It then may not stop older siblings marrying cousins but it can stop younger siblings doing the same.

I was just surprised by the level, these poor kids being born to suffer when it is completely unnecessary. Just on cost alone the government should act.

Oh definitely our royalty were just as guilty a 100 years ago.

I would just make a cousin marriage a negative thing when getting a Visa and outlawing it going forward in the UK.

[SueEllen]

This has been randomly brought up for decades.

I suspect the best way to explain it to people regardless of ethnicity is to tell and explain to them, with pictures of paintings, the history of the European royals.

It then may not stop older siblings marrying cousins but it can stop younger siblings doing the same.

[vetran]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/a...marriages.html

The babies paying the price of cultural tradition: It's estimated that more than half of Pakistani-heritage couples in Britain are in cousin marriages. Now community leaders are confronting the troubling medical risks, writes SUE REID

• Tahira Naqvi, 40, who lives in Bradford, lost her first baby after marrying cousin
• Babies born in cousin marriages can suffer from ‘recessive’ genetic disorders
• Pakistani and South Asian heritage are disproportionately affected
• Tahira volunteered with Born In Bradford project to help stop death and illness

The likelihood of a couple both having the same variant gene is 100 to one in the general population. In cousin marriages, that can rise to one in eight because people who are related to each other are more likely to carry the same faults in their DNA. And the problem only intensifies as cousin marriages continue generation after generation.

Yet despite the health dangers, it is estimated that 55 per cent of Pakistani-heritage couples — like Tahira and her husband in Bradford — are in cousin marriages.

And while British Pakistani couples are responsible for 3 per cent of births overall in the UK, they account for a third — 33 per cent — of children with genetic birth defects.

poor little sods.