Inbreeding in the 21st Century!

In November, NPR aired a segment about the a Syrian village whose inhabitants continue their 100-year-old tradition of intermarrying. Their population of 5,000 includes 800 living with extreme birth defects.

You can read and listen to the story here.

I'm all for respecting other people's cultures and traditions, but this story completely blew me away. I've read fiction that depicted modern-day inbreeding, but to be faced with a real-world example was disheartening and infuriating, to be honest.

Near the end of the segment, a resident claims that the many blind, deformed, and pain-ridden residents are that way because that's part of God's plan. He concluded by asking (I'm paraphrasing), "What do you want us to do, stop marrying?"

My response: "YES! Stop $#@%ing your damned sisters, mothers and first cousins! I understand that you're an impoverished people, but are property and business interests worth condemning your offspring to very short, very painful lives?"

I'm still amazed every time I think of this podcast, but at least one among them is "taking the unprecedented step of asking the outside world for help" (a detail I missed the first time, around).