Book Accuses Anthropologist of Epidemic
B O S T O N, Sept. 29, 2000 -- U.S. scientists sparked ameasles epidemic that killed “perhaps thousands” of AmazonIndians, according to a not-yet published book that has alreadysparked a firestorm of controversy on the Internet.
Patrick Tierney’s Darkness in El Dorado: How Scientistsand Journalists Devastated the Amazon, presents evidence thatscientists during a 1968 expedition inoculated Yanomami Indiansagainst measles and possibly contributed to an epidemic of thedisease that killed “hundreds, perhaps thousands” of theisolated tribe in a remote region of Venezuela.
The expedition was funded by the former Atomic EnergyCommission and led by the late geneticist James Neel of theUniversity of Michigan and then-University of California atSanta Barbara anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon.
Book Questions Vaccinations
At the time the expedition arrived in the Amazon Basin tostudy the relatively isolated Yanomami, the tribe’s populationnumbered around 20,000. It is now estimated closer to 10,000.
Tierney suggests that Neel’s inoculating the Yanomamiactually gave some of them measles and they infected others.But medical scientists said such a thing has never been shownbefore.
The Edmonston B measles vaccine did have side-effects andeventually was withdrawn from the market in the early 1970s,but was a standard treatment in 1968.
The epidemic charge is the most explosive in the book,which also accuses the now-retired Chagnon of debauchedbehavior.
Sparks Academic Firestorm
The sedate world of anthropology has been turned upsidedown by reports of the book’s scandalous accusations, whichhave sparked a rash of e-mails, accusations and papers that arewhipping around the World Wide Web.
One of Chagnon’s critics and one of the few people to haveactually read the book, Professor Thomas Headland of the SummerInstitute of Sociology in Dallas, has his doubts aboutTierney’s book.
“There is no love lost between Chagnon and me. He hascriticized me in print, and I him,” Headland said in an e-mailto Reuters. “But I don’t believe, after reading Tierney’s book,that Chagnon is guilty of genocide, or that he purposely helpedintroduce and spread measles into the Yanomami population.... Idon’t believe that Chagnon ‘demanded that villagers bring himgirls for sex...’”
Scholars Pick Sides
Chagnon declined comment, but posted a statement on the Web(http:/www.anth.ucsb.edu/chagnon.html), blaming the turmoil on“the extremely offensive document focusing on allegations madein the book ... by cultural anthropologists Terence Turner andLeslie Sponsel is full of accusations that have no factualfoundation.”
Turner, a Cornell University professor, and University ofHawaii professor Sponsel’s electronic memo repeated Tierney’sallegations, warned of a scandal and was sent around the Web.
“It was a confidential memo sent to three people — thepresident of the American Anthropological Association, thepresident-elect and the chairman of the association’s humanrights committee,” Turner told Reuters, adding “it was veryunprofessional for someone to pirate that memo and send it to amillion people around the world.”
Academics quickly lined up on both sides.
University of Pennsylvania historian Susan Lindee, whowrote a book about Neel and his efforts to study radiation’seffect on the Japanese after the Second World War, actuallylooked at the geneticist’s field notes from the 1968expedition.
“He actually brought with him 2,000 doses of vaccine. Hebrought gammaglobulin and penicillin,” she said, adding Neelhad Venezuelan government permission and had consulted with theU.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention to learn how togive the drugs before the January 1968 trip.
Excerpts to Appear in New Yorker
“Tierney is right in the sense that the Yanomami have beentreated in a grotesque manner by many different groups,scientists, journalists, miners, government and militaryofficials ... who have grievously damaged their health, theirenvironment and their way of life,” Lindee said.
The book’s publication date has been moved from Oct. 1 toto Nov. 16, which coincides with the American AnthropologicalAssociation’s annual meeting in San Francisco. The AAA hasalready posted on its Web site,(www.aaanet.org/press/eldorado.htm), a statement about the bookwhich is to be excerpted in next week’s New Yorker magazine.
And Amazon.com says the 499-page W.W. Norton book, with1,599 footnotes, is already ranked 279 in sales.