Posts Tagged ‘marriage’

Marrying within one’s family is not usual practice for good reason – genetic diseases can occur more frequently. Aside from that, University of Cambridge researchers have found that children whose parents are related are more susceptible to some infections. By looking at data from certain parts of The Gambia where intra-family marriage is common, Gambian families where children had tuberculosis or hepatitis B, had parents who were significantly more likely to be related than in families with healthy children. Although more investigation needs to be done, it makes sense to think that children whose parents are related may have less diversity at the immunogenetic as well.

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India is home to the world’s third largest population of HIV/AIDS patients. However, finding a partner is not an easy task for an HIV-positive person in India for various reasons, including stigmatization of the disease and the logistics of communication-millions of people do not have access to the internet and may be unable to use a computer. Anil Kumar Valiv, founder of Positivesaathi.com was inspired by his HIV-positive friend’s desire for a normal life when creating the site. He states that that the website may even decrease the spread of HIV. “Often parents give in to social pressure and knowingly marry off sons with HIV infection to healthy women who in turn get infected. Exclusive marriage portals for HIV positive people will at least give these people the freedom to choose their own life partners and save many innocent lives,” he said. Read more and Share your perspective.

The New York Times reports on a trend resulting from skyrocketing US health care costs – couples considering marriage, divorce, or delaying divorce for the sake of health benefits. According to a poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health policy research group, 7% of respondents stated that someone in their family has married in order to obtain health insurance. The foundation cautions against a literal interpretation of the results, but stresses that the results are of interest because Americans “are making major life decisions on the basis of health care concerns.” Full story.