Say what?

A British Labour MP has publicly apologized after suggesting that inbreeding may be responsible for an unusual increase in the number of type 1 diabetes in his Norfolk constituency.

In an interview with BBC Radio, Dr. Ian Gibson, a former science lecturer at the University of East Anglia’s School of Biological Sciences, suggested that familial relationships may be responsible for a sharing of the gene that triggers type 1 diabetes.

“In a county where it’s from way back in the past there have been smaller numbers of people, localised in small areas there may be some degree of familiarity, family relationships you know in terms of brothers and other families with the same name and so on,” he said.

Gibson’s comments brought a response from Dr. Ketan Dhatariya, a diabetologist at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital.

“It’s an insult to people with type-1 diabetes and their families and it’s an insult to people in Norfolk,” said Dhatariya. “There’s no suggestion that that is the case. It’s not the way that genetics works. There is a genetic element, but it may be triggered by an environmental factor. Nobody knows why it is rising.”

Dr. Gibson issued an apology, explaining that words like inbreeding were professional genetic medical terms with a different meaning to the general public.

“It’s obviously caused a lot of offense and for that I unreservedly apologize,” he said.

Except of course, he spelled “offense” and “apologize” differently, if only in his head.

(via BBC News. Thanks, Amy!)