Is it true that children produced from incest are likely to suffer from mental illness?
I have done extensive research on this matter. The likeliness of mental or physical defect due to incest is no more increased than it is if the mother has a couple nights partying during the first few weeks of pregnancy. So you can say that incest is as harmful as a bottle of Vodka. Genetically recessive genes are most prevalent in boys. Since boys have XY chromosomes and girls have YY chromosomes, girls naturally have the “second chance” genetic structure. In the case of boys, if there is a ‘defective gene’ carried by the specific sperm cell that fertilizes the egg it will show up regardless of it being incest or not.
Not all children of incest are retarded and many want to believe. Infact there can be good incest in that some bad genes can be removed from the DNA chain causing better health. If the child of incest does not repeat the incest with a close family member but instead has children from an unrelated source the bad genes are gone and the chances of problems are again reduced to the normal of 1.5% chance of unrelated parents. First generation incest children have only a 3% chance of physical or mental problems. It increases with each direct generation that by the third direct generation the chances are over 10% of having birth defects the major problem being hemophilia.