The Consang Reproduction Study... RESULTS ARE IN!

Wow Jane! Very interesting data. Especially the conclusions about second generation inbreeding and the child's health.

My mom was past menopause by the time we became a couple, but we have discussed the desire for a child of our own and simply offer our hope and love to those couples who can and do raise their own.

Thank you so much for this, Jane. We've been discussing having children for a while now and this has helped put things into perspective about our chances of producing a healthy child, there are so many mismatched results out there it's hard to know what to believe but since a study has been produced by someone we trust, it makes things a lot easier. I know this isn't 100% accurate but it gives us a rough ballpark as to what we should be expecting.

Thanks once again, we really do appreciate it.

- Sis

Hi.

Professor Bittles said he would read this. It will be interesting to hear what he has to say.

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/author/alan-bittles

AbeSarah wrote:Hi.

Professor Bittles said he would  read  this. It will  be interesting to hear what he has to say.

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/author/alan-bittles

That's brilliant I wasn't aware you'd been in touch with him, but it's great he is interested in my study. Hopefully he will get in touch with me.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year JD I,

I hope you are well. I have not heard back from Prof. Bittles in all this time and perhaps it is time I wrote to him again.

I have noticed that a lot of studies he has done, as well as others, including French studies are restricted to places where there is a high rate of Consang marriages between cousins ( places like Pakistan and Morocco) and the marriages are arranged, even forced, and carry on for generations uninterrupted by actual love marriages.

Even amongst genuine CIAO cases there should be an allowance giver for at least 60% of BD to be spontaneous mutations with no known cause, i.e. 'coding errors' etc.

Also I agree that the volunteers for the study may not be too representative of the whole CIAO community. If the birth rate was the same for the general population ( roughly 2%) then the 226 children of the study 'cohort' ought to have come from a population of 11300 CIAO people. But they appear to have come from a far smaller group. Oh well, just chatter really:-) It has been a virtually alcohol-free Xmas but I am still feeling a little hung-over from all the COVID restrictions:-) I am cautiously optimistic for a better year next year. Fingers crossed!

Stay safe.

Thing is with continuous cousin inbreeding with no new genetic material for several generations, it can likely be far more problematic for the health of the offspring than a single case of consanguinous reproduction between immediate relatives. My study showed that the effects of inbreeding are indeed cumulative. They are still cumulative for first cousins, but it takes longer for that to show. We have a lot of Pakistani families here in the UK, and they tend to suffer from inbreeding depression because of centuries of cousin marriage (and most of the time it is arranged marriage because that is their culture and their religion forbids the from defying their parents wishes). My point is that if people are allowed to settle with whoever they want, inbreeding would not be an issue because there would be enough outbreeding going on to maintain the health of the gene pool naturally. Spontaneous genetic mutations occur all of the time, some are advantageous and some are not, and this will occur regardless of whether the parents are related or not.

I feel everyone who wants to have children should get genetically tested anyway, even if they aren't related. Helps to be prepared, and it's the presence of specific alleles, not the degree of relation, that in the end matters.

mèþru wrote:I feel everyone who wants to have children should get genetically tested anyway, even if they aren't related. Helps to be prepared, and it's the presence of specific alleles, not the degree of relation, that in the end matters.

And check their family histories for hereditary diseases. The DNA tests can’t tell the whole story. At least not yet.

Stay safe,
UN

I'm not susrprised with the results, but one is glad this is a huge precedent for future activism sources. Seriously, more studies of imbreeding must be conducted. Darwin's early research was right: the deal with inbreed children is irrelevant if the enviormet is toxic for itself