What’s significant about this article is that it was published in the Arab media. This particular text appeared in English, but one assumes that Arabic-language versions are also circulating.
According to Al-Arabiya:
Arabs Suffer From High Rate of Gene Disorders- - - - - - - - -
The report by the Dubai-based Center for Arab Genomic Studies (CAGS) said Arabs have one of the highest rates of genetic disorders mostly related to consanguinity, or marriages between close relatives.
The genetic research institute found that around 63 percent of the genetic conditions found in Arabs, who often practice marriage between relatives, were related to consanguinity and warned the numbers were likely to rise as more research is conducted and more disorders discovered.
In the United Arab Emirates, a country with the fifth highest rate of inter-family marriages, there are currently over 250 types of genetic diseases, the second-highest after neighboring Oman.
“Prevalence of genetic diseases is very high in the UAE compared to the rest of the world, so it is a major concern. It also puts a lot of burden on the government financially. We need to prepare strategies with a special focus on genetics,” Dr. Ghazi Omar Tadmouri, Assistant Director of CAGS, said in a statement.
CAGS has so far completed studies in the UAE, Oman and Bahrain and plans to continue extensive research throughout the Arab world.
Epidemic levels
Reports have found that several genomic diseases such as thalassaemia, a blood disorder, diabetes, breast cancer and Down’s syndrome have reached epidemic levels, more than 100 cases per 100,000, in the three Gulf countries researched so far.
Ghazi said building the database was important as “it gives us a bird’s-eye view of each country on genetic diseases. Some are epidemic and some very rare,” he told the UAE paper The National.
Dr. Anain Yvorra, general director of France’s Eurobiomed, organizer of this year’s Montpellier conference on rare genetic diseases, told Al Arabiya the research done by CAGS would be of great interest to the field of genomic studies.
“The chance of genetic diseases increases with each consanguine marriage between defective gene carriers. A genetic pool with a long history of such marriages would indeed bread [sic] very interesting results.”
He noted however that although most of the diseases recognized by CAGS as epidemics in the UAE, Oman and Bahrain, are genetically related, breast cancer could also have many other triggers.
“Breast cancer could be environmental or emotional as well as genetic.”
The center funded by the Sheikh Hamadan Award form medical sciences states on its website that its vision is “to alleviate human suffering from genetic diseases in the Arab World.”
Hat tip: TB.
10 comments:
This explains so much about the difference between Arab Islam and the West - i.e the difference between closed and open cultures.
They don't touch on the more incendiary effect of in-breeding, retarding intelligence, especially in a group that has always relied on force and theft rather than brain power.
They wish to die so badly? Let them.
Well, what goes around comes around. Unfortunately they will now export their backward traditions to us as well. In 200 years time we will be as inbred as they are. :(
One of my early essays at GoV, titled "What the Hedgehog Knows", dealt with this subject. Although this first offering's preface is a bit stilted and awkward, it eventually gets down to the brass tacks of consanguineous marriage.
I still await the day when it is finally revealed that inbreeding enhances a predisposition towards psychotically violent behavior and a similar susceptibility to indoctrination.
It would explain so very much about Islam.
Very good article but before my time here which explains why I have missed it. I posted a few excerpts and a link to the original article here on GoV on a swedish forum. I hope you don't mind.
Robin, you have always been a strong supporter of my own positions here at GoV, so I am glad to have you excerpt my material at your blog. All I ask is that when you do this to please provide a link here at GoV so that readers can review what parts of my work you found to be of importance.
I visited your blog but could not navigate to your most recent postings. Otherwise I would have left this comment at your own site.
Feel free to contact the Baron with a request that he forward your message to me and I will reply to you so that we can establish a regular email chain.
Keep fighting the good fight!
Again an interesting article. Not long ago, there was some debate about cousin-marriages of immigrants in Denmark, and their effect. One scientist/researcher went out in defence of such practices, and even advocating abolishing the ban on incest(closer than cousin sexual relations), claiming there was hardly any difference in genetic disorders of such relations and normal relations. Yet here we have an arab country concerned about the effects of cousin marriages... The world is crazy.
Zenster, my blog has been inactive for some time. i published it on the forume Exilen. Steen and Skalman also memebers there. I dropped the links inhe ots section in two blogs but without excerpts. We'll see if that will lead to anything.
Ok so my mouse is playing fun with me again. pe it is my decipherable now.
Zenster, my blog has been inactive for some time. i published it on the forum Exilen. Steen and Skalman also are members there. I dropped the links in he comments section in two blogs but without excerpts. We'll see if that will lead to anything.
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