Can you imagine the fuss if a Conservative MP had said this?

Phil Woolas recently warned about birth defects among children of first cousin marriages in Britain's Asian community. Phil Woolas said health workers were aware such marriages were creating increased risk of genetic problems.


The BBC report that "The call for action was also supported by Labour MP Ann Cryer who raised the issue two years ago after research showed British Pakistanis were 13 times more likely to have children with recessive disorders than the general population.

Mrs Cryer, who represents Keighley in West Yorkshire, told the Sunday Times: "This is to do with a medieval culture where you keep wealth within the family."

"I have encountered cases of blindness and deafness. There was one poor girl who had to have an oxygen tank on her back and breathe from a hole in the front of her neck," she added.

"The parents were warned they should not have any more children. But when the husband returned from Pakistan, within months they had another child with exactly the same condition."

Research for BBC2's Newsnight in November 2005 showed British Pakistanis accounted for 3.4% of all births but have 30% of all British children with "recessive disorders"."