In a quiet corner of the American Southwest lies a village where one man having three or more wives is not an anomaly; it is expected. In this community, dozens of children may share the same father, and everyone seems to be a cousin. But behind the tranquil image of faith and family is a growing public health disaster.
This is the story of Short Creek, an isolated town where polygamy and genetics have collided to create one of the highest known concentrations of a rare, devastating disease.
Where Is Short Creek, And Who Lives There?
Short Creek refers to the twin towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona, sitting right on the state border. With a combined population of about 7,700, these towns are home to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), a polygamist sect that split from mainstream Mormonism in the early 20th century.
In the FLDS, polygamy is not just allowed; it is considered essential for salvation. “Most families include at least three wives, because that is the number you need to enter heaven,” says Faith Bistline, a former FLDS member who had three mothers and 27 siblings. While the mainstream LDS church banned polygamy in 1890, the FLDS community has doubled down on the practice, leading to an unusually concentrated and genetically closed population.
A Mysterious Disease In A Remote Town
As reported by the BBC, in 1990, a 10-year-old boy from the region was presented to a rare disease specialist in Arizona with unusual features: a large forehead, small jaw, and severe developmental delays. After extensive testing, doctors diagnosed him with fumarase deficiency, a metabolic disorder so rare that only 13 cases had ever been reported worldwide, a rate of about 1 in 400 million.
But it did not stop there. The boy’s sister was diagnosed with the same disease, and soon eight more children from the same area were found to have it. Every child had the same distinctive symptoms: delayed development, severe intellectual disability, and facial abnormalities. Many could not walk or even sit up. “It results in structural abnormalities and a syndrome including seizures and delayed development,” explains Dr Vinodh Narayanan, a neurologist at the Translational Genomics Research Institute in Arizona.
In Short Creek, where cousin marriage is common and family trees intertwine quickly, over 20 cases of this supposedly rare disease have now been identified, a rate over 1 million times higher than the global average.
How Polygamy Triggers Genetic Crisis
The root of the crisis lies in the math of inheritance. Every person carries 1–2 lethal recessive mutations in their genome, genes that are harmless when paired with a healthy one but can be deadly if two carriers have children. In large, diverse populations, this rarely poses a problem. But in genetically closed communities, like Short Creek, it is a ticking time bomb.
The math becomes chilling when polygamy enters the picture. Take Brigham Young, a Mormon leader from the 1800s with 55 wives and 59 children. Those children went on to have 204 grandchildren, who produced 745 great-grandchildren.
By 1982, he had at least 5,000 direct descendants and counting. In Short Creek today, only two surnames, Jessop and Barlow, dominate. According to historian Benjamin Bistline, 75–80% of the community is related to the founding patriarchs Joseph Jessop and John Barlow.
Polygamy accelerates this process. One man with three wives and ten children per wife can theoretically produce over 24 million descendants in just five generations. Of course, reality tempers those numbers, but not enough to stop severe inbreeding from becoming the norm.
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When Cousins Marry, Communities Suffer
This tight genetic loop increases the risk of children inheriting the same dangerous mutations. “With polygyny, you are decreasing the overall genetic diversity because a few men are having a disproportionate impact on the next generation,” said Dr Mark Stoneking, a geneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, in conversation with the BBC.
Making matters worse is the FLDS tradition of exiling many young boys, often called “lost boys,” to reduce competition for wives. These boys, sometimes as young as 13, are driven to highways and abandoned. “They are driven to the highway by their mothers in the middle of the night and dumped by the side of the road,” says legal scholar Amos Guiora. Some estimates suggest there may be up to 1,000 such boys, further shrinking the male gene pool.
Former members describe the effects firsthand. Faith Bistline looked after five cousins with fumarase deficiency before she left the FLDS in 2011. One cousin, now in his 30s, began learning to walk at two years old, but after repeated seizures, he lost the ability and never crawled again. “They are completely physically and mentally disabled,” she says.
A Cautionary Tale Written In DNA
What is happening in Short Creek is not just a story of a religious sect; it is a case study in population genetics. Conservation biologists have long known that small, isolated groups of animals suffer from inbreeding depression. It is the same in humans.
Polygyny, by limiting the number of men contributing genes, has triggered a silent catastrophe in Short Creek.
It is a crisis built over generations, born from good intentions and spiritual conviction, but resulting in real-world suffering. Fumarase deficiency is only the most visible warning. More genetic disorders may be lurking under the surface, waiting to emerge.
When Faith Overrides Science
The story of Short Creek is a reminder that belief systems do not exist in a vacuum. When religious practices like polygamy are practised in isolation and across generations, they can lead to unintended consequences, particularly when it comes to our DNA. What began as a pursuit of spiritual purity has turned into a genetic trap, where children pay the price.
In a world growing increasingly connected and informed, Short Creek stands as a living cautionary tale of what happens when the pool of genes shrinks, but the number of children does not.
Image Credits: Google Images
Sources: BBC, New York Times, NBC
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This post is tagged under: polygamy, child health, genetic disorders, rare diseases, public health, family planning, reproductive rights, medical ethics, FLDS, Utah, Arizona, Short Creek, Mormon history, religious cults, lost boys, Brigham Young, inbreeding, human genetics, consanguinity, population genetics, recessive disorders, fumarase deficiency, neurology, metabolic disease, human rights, untold stories, investigative journalism, health crisis, community health
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