| Opinion
by Nicholas
Regush, ABCNews.com
Looking at Conflict of Interest
in Biomedicine, Part Two
Well, here we go again. Another red-hot scientific
scandal. This time, anthropologists and geneticists are getting a
noisy wake-up call.
A book written by journalist Patrick Tierney, titled
Darkness in El Dorado: How Scientists and Journalists Devastated the Amazon,
will be published next month. It raises a stink so high that the space
station astronauts will get a whiff of it.
Tierney alleges that some big
stars in science were likely either involved in a horrific biological
experiment on the isolated Amazonian Yanomamo Indian tribe
or in fabrication of scientific data while
conducting ethnographic studies in the region.
Criminal Investigation
Warranted
If enough genuine dirt appears to seep out from
beneath the rug surrounding these allegations, there should be a federal
criminal investigation. These days, with so much conflict of interest
and ugly, aggressive partisanship built into the fabric of scientific
enterprise, anyone trusting science to police itself is probably ignorant
of scientific politics.
One suggestion in Tierney’s book is that the
late geneticist James Neel may have helped launch a deadly measles epidemic
in 1968 among the Yanomamo. Hundreds, maybe thousands, died of measles
about the time that several communities of the tribe were inoculated (for
reasons that remain unclear) with a controversial ? and, some say, dangerous
and inappropriate -- live-virus measles vaccine known as Edmonston
B.
Some of this research, funded by the Atomic
Energy Commission, was conducted in the context of the agency’s need
to test for genetic mutation in a population that had not been contaminated
by radiation. The commission needed Yanomamo blood samples.
Many Troublesome Questions
Did Neel help trigger this epidemic so that he
could test a genetic theory? Did his notion of the existence of a "leadership"
gene motivate him to determine whether genetically superior Yanomamo could
successfully fight off an invasion of a new virus? Did he view the isolated
Yanomamo, who live in the Amazon basin of northern Brazil and southern
Venezuela, as providing him with the dream condition for testing his theory?
These are some of the dicey questions now circulating
in anthropological circles, and will require some answers.
Tierney’s book also raises disturbing questions about the ethics
and credibility of Napoleon Chagnon, Neel protégé and co-Yanomamo
researcher and possible co-conspirator in the measles epidemic. Chagnon
is currently professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of California,
Santa Barbara.
Suspicious Cultural
Theories
Chagnon is famous for his portrayal of the Yanomamo
as fiercely warlike, and for providing strong fuel, on the basis of his
research in the Amazon, for the theory that men are the movers of evolutionary
change because they are biologically primed to be violent and thereby
compete aggressively for sexual access to women.
Some of his fellow anthropologists have long blasted
Chagnon for what they call slovenly research. And now Tierney comes along
and alleges that Chagnon has not only cooked his data but staged fights
on film to promote his views that the Yanomamo are savages.
As you might well imagine, critics of these two
men are gearing up for a major battle against those who defend them. Chagnon
considers the charges in the book to be ludicrous, the net effect of a
long-standing political feud within anthropology about the nature of being
human.
The American Anthropological Association will play
host to some of this argument at its annual meeting next month.
Fox Guarding the
Chicken Coop
Any investigation should move beyond academic rants.
This episode in science can’t be left to the fox who guards the chicken
coop.
The same Atomic Energy Commission (predecessor
to the Department of Energy) that sponsored radiation experiments in the
mid-1970s without knowledge or consent of its 16,000 subjects, including
hospital patients, prisoners and mentally disabled children, is once again
at the heart of scandal.
It was only in 1993, after considerable pressure
was applied by activists and survivors, that the Clinton administration
acknowledged the commission’s role in the radiation experiments.
We’d better get some real answers from law enforcement authorities
about the Yanomamo research -- and fast.
Nicholas
Regush produces medical features for
ABCNEWS. In his weekly
column, published Thursdays, he looks at medical trouble spots, heralds
innovative achievements and analyzes health trends that may greatly influence
our lives. His latest book is The Virus Within.
ABC
News Second Opinion September 29, 2000.
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