happy as pigs in Shit!! [BD]
Incest is best, when kept in the family!
c-rock
Contrary to widely held beliefs and long-standing taboos in America, first cousins can have children together without a great risk of birth defects or genetic disease, scientists are reporting Thursday. They say there is no biological reason to discourage cousins from marrying.
First cousins are somewhat more likely than unrelated parents to have a child with a serious birth defect, mental retardation or genetic disease, but their increased risk is nowhere near as large as most people think, the scientists said. In the general population, the risk that a child will be born with a serious problem, such as spina bifida or cystic fibrosis, is 3 percent to 4 percent; to that risk, first cousins must add another 1.7 to 2.8 percentage points, the researchers said.
Although the increase represents a near doubling of the risk, the result is still not considered large enough to discourage people from having children, said Dr. Arno Motulsky, an emeritus professor of medicine and genome sciences at the University of Washington, and the senior author of the report.
"In terms of general risks in life it's not very high," Motulsky said.
Even at its worst, 7 percent, he said, "93 percent of the time, nothing is going to happen."
The report is being published Thursday in The Journal of Genetic Counseling.
"As genetic advisers, we give people all the various possibilities and risks and leave it up to them to make a decision," Motulsky said. "Some might decide a doubling of the risk is not something they want to face."
He and his colleagues said no one has questioned the rights of other people to have children, even though they have far higher levels of risk than first cousins do. For example, people with Huntington's disease, a severe neurological disorder that comes on in adulthood, have a 50 percent chance of passing the disease to their children.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-0204040324apr04.story?coll=chi%2Dnews%2Dhed