[Mail] A remote Turkish village where more than half the population are deaf and non-verbal has left doctors and scientists baffled.
Isolated Gokova - which is located 450 miles from Istanbul and has a small population of 120 - has such profound disability problems that sign language has become the primary means of communication, Turkish newspaper Hürriyet reports.
Local mayor Eyup Tozn said: 'We've learned to rely on sign language as a community but any outsiders have trouble communicating.
'There are almost no healthy people', he said.
Villager Sati Tozun said: 'I have four children with disabilities and one of them has three children, all deaf and mute.
'My sister-in-law has children with disabilities. This village is completely disabled.'
Causes for the condition that has affected several families are not known, but some have blamed the high deafness rate on inbreeding in an area where newcomers are a rarity.
But others say locals have been slowly poisoned by generations of water pollution, with metals like iron and arsenic and chemical contamination from industrial waste having been linked to deafness.
'I think this is not caused by inter-marriage, but because of unhealthy water sources', mayor Tozn added.
Another local, Rahmi Cizin, noted how villagers 'don't have access to clean water', adding that 'the rate of disability here is very high. All of them need care.'
Gokova is a picturesque village with stunning turquoise waters and rolling mountains.
The mystery surrounding the high deafness rate in the Turkish village comes more than 10 years after Australian authorities uncovered a hidden community where children born from generations of incest lived with physical deformities.
Incapable of intelligible speech, some of the children had oddly-formed features as the result of being born to parents who were themselves related.
The discovery was made in 2012, when officials raided a 'bush camp' in the hillside valley.
| Lots of studies in Britain because of the high rate of close cousin marriage-caused birth defects:in the “Asian” (Pakistani) community. Here is a recent news report: |
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Data suggests the risk of a child of first cousins developing a genetic condition is between 3 to 6 per cent, which is double the risk compared to children from unrelated parents. While this still means the majority of children born in such circumstances will be healthy, the increased risk is undeniable. Potential conditions children of first cousins are at increased risk of include birth defects, developmental delays, and ongoing genetic disorders.
These can include conditions such as blindness, hearing loss, neonatal diabetes, limb malformations, low IQ, cleft palate, heart problems, cystic fibrosis, and even an increased risk of infant death. Risks broadly increases if there is a family history of such unions, as genetic errors can compound between generations.
Cousin marriage is still common in some UK communities.
Experts have previously found that a preference for such unions among British Pakistanis was a contributing factor in child mortality rates in Bradford due to an increased risk of genetic conditions. NHS studies between 2007-11 found consanguineous marriages, a genetics term meaning parents are at least second cousins or more closely related, accounted for 60 per cent of marital unions in people of Pakistani heritage in Bradford.
This compared to just 1 per cent among white British couples in the area.
Of the Pakistani-heritage marriages, 37 per cent were specifically to a first-cousin and would be the type of unions that Mr Holden's bill would forbid if passed into law. Subsequent NHS studies, conducted between 2016 and 2020, found the rate of consanguineous unions among this community has fallen to about 43 per cent.
The NHS has previously stated in leaflets distributed to families in Bradford, that cousin marriage accounts for about a third of birth defects.
Worldwide, one in 10 people are thought to be the result of a consanguineous union.
Studies have put Pakistan as having one of the highest rates globally at 65 per cent. This is followed by India (55 per cent), Saudi Arabia (50 per cent), Afghanistan (40 per cent), Iran (30 per cent) and Egypt and Turkey (20 per cent each).