Health Yahoo Lifestyle. Jennifer Gerson Uffalussy. I/51J%2BstcKMXL._SL500_AC_SS350_.jpg' alt='Taboo Game Wedding Version Song' title='Taboo Game Wedding Version Song' />And this belief cuts across party lines, with majorities of Republican, Democratic, and Independent businesswomen all favoring expanded birth control access. The season seven premiere of Game of Thrones is almost upon us. Before all the glorious killing begins this Sunday, why not make watching the show a bit more interesting The incest taboo is one of the most common of all cultural taboos. Most modern societies have legal or social restrictions on such marriages. In some societies, such. Legally, all you need for a wedding is a visit to the county clerks office, and whatever else your local government requires. Check here. Everything else is. Its time to confront this taboo First cousin marriages in Muslim communities are putting hundreds of children at risk. By. Sue Reid for The Mail on Sunday. Published. 2. 3 3. BST, 3 June 2. 01. The man wept as he told how his beautiful, dark eyed child died in a hospital cot with medical tubes snaking from his frail body as nurses fought unsuccessfully to save him. Sick with pneumonia, the two year old gave up the battle for life. A rare tragedy, you might think, in  modern Britain, with all the advances of medical science. I/71TdvbgyfWL._SY355_.jpg' alt='Taboo Game Wedding Version Song' title='Taboo Game Wedding Version Song' />Sports journalists and bloggers covering NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, MMA, college football and basketball, NASCAR, fantasy sports and more. News, photos, mock drafts, game. Yahoo Lifestyle is your source for style, beauty, and wellness, including health, inspiring stories, and the latest fashion trends. But in the terraced streets of Bradford, Yorkshire, a childs death is anything but rare. At the boys inquest, coroner Mark Hinchliffe said Hamza Rehman had died because his Pakistan born parents shopkeeper Abdul and housewife Rozina are first cousins. Four years before, Hamzas older sister, three month old Khadeja, had died of the same brain disorder which causes fits, sickness and chest infections. The couple had another baby born with equally devastating neurological problems. A heartbroken Mr Rehman told the inquest that he and his wife were unsure whether to have any more children. The coroner expressed deep sympathy before saying that Hamzas death should serve as a warning to others. This highlights a cultural and. He said This highlights a cultural and religious issue relating to first cousin marriages and the potential risk to children that some medical experts say can result from such unions. The coroner chose his words carefully, since he was addressing one of the most controversial and taboo subjects in multi cultural Britain marriage between cousins in the Muslim communities which has left hundreds, if not thousands, of children damaged or dead. This week, leading geneticist Professor Steve Jones, of University College London, warned that inbreeding in Islamic communities was threatening the health of generations of children. He said We should be concerned as there can be a lot of hidden genetic damage and children are much more likely to get two copies of a damaged gene. He highlighted Bradford as a city that was very inbred. This is not the first time the. Ann Cryer, the Labour MP for nearby. Keighley, has said that cousin marriages are medieval, harm children and. Critic Keighley MP Anne Cryer has condemned first cousin marriagesIt is not fair to the children or to the NHS which has to treat them. If you go into a paediatric ward in Bradford or Keighley, you will find more than half the kids are from the Asian community, she said. Since Asians form only 2. Mrs Cryer recalled the case of a young girl in hospital who had to carry an oxygen tank on her back and breathe from a hole in the front of her neck. Her parents were warned by doctors not to have more children, she explained. But when the husband returned again from Pakistan, his wife had given birth within months to another child with exactly the same condition. Are the MPs words, and those of Professor Jones, inflammatory or simply a truth that needs to  be airedSadly, the facts speak for themselves. British Pakistanis, half of whom marry a first cousin a figure that is universally agreed, are 1. Government sponsored research. One in ten children from these cousin marriages either dies in infancy or develops a serious life threatening disability. While British Pakistanis account for three per cent of the births in this country, they are responsible for 3. The vast majority of problems are caused by recessive gene disorders, according to Londons Genetic Interest Group, which advises affected families. Everyone carries some abnormal genes, but most people dont have a defect because the normal gene overrules the abnormal one. One in ten children from these cousin marriages either dies in infancy or develops a serious life threatening disability. But if a husband and wife both have an abnormal recessive gene, they have a one in four chance of producing a child with defects. These include blindness, deafness, blood ailments such as sickle cell anaemia, heart or kidney failure, lung or liver problems and myriad complex neurological or brain disorders. Even their healthy children have a one in four chance of being a carrier of a defect, with terrible implications for the next generation. The problem is most serious in Bradford. A recent survey of 1,1. Pakistanis across the whole of Britain. Shocking The practice of inter marriage within Muslim communities is leading to some children being born with a raft of genetic diseases. It is no surprise therefore that more than six per cent of children in Bradford have health defects, with paediatric wards looking after countless children, including teenagers lying in nappies who are unable to speak and are fed through a tube. Meanwhile, the citys special schools struggle to cope with huge numbers of pupils with learning difficulties. Bradfords St Lukes Hospital has seen an extraordinary rise in the number of different types of genetic disorders. Some are very rare and, hitherto, unknown in Britain. In a typical health authority area, the range of different types of genetic disorder total 2. But in Bradford, 1. Dr Peter Corry, a consultant paediatrician at the hospital. Many are degenerative ailments which lead to a decline in the ability of the brain and spinal cord to function properly after a child is born, as in the case of Hamza and Khadeja. Their bodies weakened, and unable to fight off infections, they gradually faded away. The British Paediatric Surveillance Unit says eight per cent of all UK children born with this kind of neuro degenerative condition come from Bradford, although the city has just one per cent of the UKs population. Research into the citys 9,0. Pakistani families. But Bradford is not alone. In Birmingham, which also has a big Pakistani community, the citys Primary Care Trust estimates that one in ten of all children born to first cousins either dies in infancy or goes on to have a serious disability because of a recessive gene disorder. Devout Muslims pray at a Mosque in Bradford. A study of the citys Muslim population found that 7. Yet cousin marriages and the resulting consequences remain a taboo subject. Few of the affected families will discuss the issue publicly. Many NHS doctors, while admitting privately there is a crisis, refuse to speak out for fear of being branded racist. However, on Muslim websites the issue is discussed more freely. An Asian health worker wrote recently I went to two special schools in my city. One was for children with physical disabilities the other with kids who had learning difficulties. The children at the second school were aged 1. None of them was capable of functioning beyond the behaviour expected of an infant. They all wore nappies. They didnt speak, a few grunts aside. All needed inordinate amounts of special care, from doctors, speech therapists and so on. The parents are drained emotionally. Of the six 1. Pakistani and one was a Tamil. All had blood related ancestry. I rest my case cousin marriages dont work. So why are cousin marriages so popular As one British Pakistani put it bluntly on a similar website A main reason why this corrupt practice is still followed in Britain is because the family wants to keep their property, land, jewellery and money in the family. The lack of education in families, along with a Pakistani village culture, encourages these incestuous marriages. The children are born disabled and it must cost the NHS millions of pounds to treat them. Torrent Snowflake Projection. Maybe if the NHS refused to treat the children the families would have second thoughts. They were harsh words. But this week I was told by charity workers, doctors and counsellors working with families in Yorkshire, Lancashire and the Midlands that many parents also believe it is an act of God or the will of Allah that their children are born disabled.