The geneticist Jim Wilson, at the University of Edinburgh, was shocked by the frequency he found in the U.K. Biobank, an anonymized research database: One in 7,000 people, according to his unpublished analysis, was born to parents who were first-degree relatives—a brother and a sister or a parent and a child. “That’s way, way more than I think many people would ever imagine,” he told me. And this number is just a floor: It reflects only the cases that resulted in pregnancy, that did not end in miscarriage or abortion, and that led to the birth of a child who grew into an adult who volunteered for a research study.

Most of the people affected may never know about their parentage, but these days, many are stumbling into the truth after AncestryDNA and 23andMe tests.

  • Wanderer@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    The UK actually has a big issue with incest. Especially with cousins. Causes loads of child fatalities.

    Really big issue with people from Asia, incest is the norm there.

    Edit for those downvoting me is this a recorded issue. It’s been in the news. Just because it doesnt fit the narrative or we arent meant to talk about those things doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.

      • Wanderer@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        Yes. They aren’t illegal apparently. White people in the UK don’t marry their cousin from my understanding though. So it becomes racist to infringe on other cultures I guess, eventhough it is the UK and UK culture should be what’s important.

    • SleepyWheel@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      Fun fact, Charles Darwin married his cousin. It used to be a more common among white Britons (and other Europeans, especially royalty lol), but it’s rare now. It is indeed quite common among Britons of Pakistani heritage, buts it’s becoming rarer. And the risk of genetic defects is actually quite small. I don’t think it can be considered incest when its legal.

      There is a theory that the reduction in cousin marriage in Europe reduced the power of clan groupings and led to the more indivualistic liberal culture we have now, with both good and less desirable effects (basically, more freedom but weaker communal bonds)

    • BangersAndMash@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I’ll upvote you if you provided a source rather than just insisting something is true because you say so.

      Edit: actually, I won’t upvote you. Incest isn’t the norm anywhere you fuckwit.

      • Wanderer@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        actually, I won’t upvote you. Incest isn’t the norm anywhere you fuckwit.

        Heres is a source. So you can get fucked, obviously you don’t know what you are on about this is why information is so important and not just making out you know things.

        “follows the health of 13,500 babies born in Bradford Royal Infirmary between 2007 and 2011. It the largest study of its kind in the UK to date.”

        “60 percent of the Pakistani mothers in the study were married to a blood relative.”

        https://www.progress.org.uk/risk-of-birth-defects-from-cousin-marriage-revealed-by-bradford-study/

      • GladiusB@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        I would consider your point if you didn’t need to call someone a name to make it. Call me moral or ethical or something.