Yanomama - we cannot remain silent!

This was forwarded to me by Father Professor Tom Splain SJ, formerly
University of Hawaii at Manoa, now Universitá Pontificia Gregoriana, Rome.

Kind regards


Arno Tausch

> ----------
> Von:  splain@hawaii.edu[SMTP:splain@hawaii.edu]
> Gesendet:     Dienstag, 3. Oktober 2000 10:16
> An:   Arno.Tausch@bmsg.gv.at
> Betreff:      Fwd: ABC News
> 
> ------------- Begin Forwarded Message -------------
> 
> Date: Sun, 1 Oct 2000 22:33:56 -1000
> From: Richard Rohde <rohde@hawaii.edu>
> To: uhanth-l@hawaii.edu
> Subject: ABC News
> 
> http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/yanomami_book000929. 
> 
> B O S T O N, Sept. 29  U.S. scientists sparked a measles epidemic that
> killed perhaps thousands of Amazon Indians, according to a not-yet
> published book that has already sparked a firestorm of controversy on the
> Internet.
>      Patrick Tierneys Darkness in El Dorado: How Scientists and
> Journalists Devastated the Amazon, presents evidence that scientists
> during a 1968 expedition inoculated Yanomami Indians against measles and
> possibly contributed to an epidemic of the disease that killed hundreds,
> perhaps thousands of the isolated tribe in a remote region of Venezuela.
>      The expedition was funded by the former Atomic Energy Commission and
> led by the late geneticist James Neel of the University of Michigan and
> then-University of California at Santa Barbara anthropologist Napoleon
> Chagnon. 
> 
> Book Questions Vaccinations
> At the time the expedition arrived in the Amazon Basin to study the
> relatively isolated Yanomami, the tribes population numbered around
> 20,000. It is now estimated closer to 10,000.
>      Tierney suggests that Neels inoculating the Yanomami actually gave
> some of them measles and they infected others. But medical scientists said
> such a thing has never been shown before.
>      The Edmonston B measles vaccine did have side-effects and eventually
> was withdrawn from the market in the early 1970s, but was a standard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 debauched behavior. 
> 
> Sparks Academic Firestorm
> The sedate world of anthropology has been turned upside down by reports of
> the books scandalous accusations, which have sparked a rash of e-mails,
> accusations and papers that are whipping around the World Wide Web.
>      One of Chagnons critics and one of the few people to have actually
> read the book, Professor Thomas Headland of the Summer Institute of
> Sociology in Dallas, has his doubts about Tierneys book.
>      There is no love lost between Chagnon and me. He has criticized me in
> print, and I him, Headland said in an e-mail to Reuters. But I dont
> believe, after reading Tierneys book, that Chagnon is guilty of genocide,
> or that he purposely helped introduce and spread measles into the Yanomami
> population.... I dont believe that Chagnon demanded that villagers bring
> him girls 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 made in the book
> ... by cultural anthropologists Terence Turner and Leslie Sponsel is full
> of accusations that have no factual foundation.
>      Turner, a Cornell University professor, and University of Hawaii
> professor Sponsels electronic memo repeated Tierneys allegations, warned
> of a scandal and was sent around the Web.
>      It was a confidential memo sent to three people  the president of the
> American Anthropological Association, the president-elect and the chairman
> of the associations human rights committee, Turner told Reuters, adding it
> was very unprofessional for someone to pirate that memo and send it to a
> million people around the world.
>      Academics quickly lined up on both sides.
>      University of Pennsylvania historian Susan Lindee, who wrote a book
> about Neel and his efforts to study radiations effect on the Japanese
> after the Second World War, actually looked at the geneticists field notes
> from the 1968 expedition.
>      He actually brought with him 2,000 doses of vaccine. He brought
> gammaglobulin and penicillin, she said, adding Neel had Venezuelan
> government permission and had consulted with the U.S. Center for Disease
> Control and Prevention to learn how to give the drugs before the January
> 1968 trip. 
> 
> Excerpts to Appear in New Yorker
> Tierney is right in the sense that the Yanomami have been treated in a
> grotesque manner by many different groups, scientists, journalists,
> miners, government and military officials ... who have grievously damaged
> their health, their environment and their way of life, Lindee said.
>      The books publication date has been moved from Oct. 1 to to Nov. 16,
> which coincides with the American Anthropological Associations annual
> meeting in San Francisco. The AAA has already posted on its Web site,
> (www.aaanet.org/press/eldorado.htm), a statement about the book which is
> to be excerpted in next weeks New Yorker magazine.
>      And Amazon.com says the 499-page W.W. Norton book, with 1,599
> footnotes, is already ranked 279 in sales. 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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