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NUCLEAR
NEWS FOR LIFE
GENETICS AND RACISM |
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To:
Louise Lamphere, President, American Anthropological Association
(lamphere@unm.edu)
Don Brenneis, President -elect, American Anthropological Association
(brenneis@cats.ucsc.edu)
From:
Terry Turner, Professor of Anthropology, Cornell University (Head of
the
Special Commission of the American Anthropological Association to
Investigate the Situation of the Brazilian Yanomami, 1990-91)
Leslie Sponsel, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Hawaii,
Manoa (Chair of the AAA Committee for Human Rights 1992-1996)
In re: Scandal about to be caused by publication of book by Patrick
Tierney
(Darkness in El Dorado. New York. Norton. Publication date: October
1, 2000).
Madam President, Mr. President-elect:
We write to inform you of an impending scandal that will affect the
American Anthropological profession as a whole in the eyes of the public,
and arouse intense indignation and calls for action among members of
the
Association. In its scale, ramifications, and sheer criminality and
corruption it is unparalleled in the history of Anthropology. The AAA
will
be called upon by the general media and its own membership to take
collective stands on the issues it raises, as well as appropriate
redressive actions. All of this will obviously involve you as Presidents
of
the Association-so the sooner you know about the story that is about
to
break, the better prepared you can be to deal with it. Both of us have
seen
galley copies of a book by Patrick Tierney, an investigative journalist,
about the actions of anthropologists and associated scientific researchers
(notably geneticists and medical experimenters) among the Yanomami
of
Venezuela over the past thirty-five years. Because of the sensational
nature of its revelations, the notoriety of the people it exposes,
and the
prestige of the organs of the academic establishment it implicates,
the
book is bound to be widely read both outside and inside the profession.
As
both an indication and a vector of its public impact, we have learned
that
The New Yorker magazine is planning to publish an extensive excerpt,
timed
to coincide with the publication of the book (on or about October 1st).
The focus of the scandal is the long-term project for study of the Yanomami
of Venezuela organized by James Neel, the human geneticist, in which
Napoleon Chagnon, Timothy Asch, and numerous other anthropologists
took
part. The French anthropologist Jacques Lizot, who also works with
the
Yanomami but is not part of Neel-Chagnon project, also figures in a
different scandalous capacity.
One of Tierney's more startling revelations is that the whole Yanomami
project was an outgrowth and continuation of the Atomic Energy Comissions
secret program of experiments on human subjects James Neel, the originator
and director of the project, was part of the medical and genetic research
team attached to the Atomic Energy Commission since the days of the
Manhattan Project. He was a member of the small group of researchers
responsible for studying the effects of radiation on human subjects.
He
personally headed the team that investigated the effects of the Hiroshima
and Nagasaki bombs on survivors,. He was put in charge of the study
of the
effects of atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and later was involved
in the studies of the effects of the radioactivity from the experimental
A
and H bomb blasts in the Marshall Islands on the natives (our colleague
May
Jo Marshall has a lot to say about these studies in the Marshalls and
Neel's role in them). The same group also secretly carried out experiments
on human subjects in the USA. These included injecting people with
radioactive plutonium without their knowledge or permission,in some
cases
leading to their death or disfigurement ( Neel himself appears not
to have
given any of these experimental injections). Another member of the
same AEC
group of human geneticists and medical experimenters, a Venezuelan,
Marcel
Roche, was a close colleague of Neel's and spent some time at his
AEC-funded center for Human Genetics at Ann Arbor. He returned to Venezuela
after the war and did a study of the Yanomami that involved administering
doses of a radioactive isotope of iodine and analyzing samples of blood
for
genetic data. Roche and his project were apparently the connection
that led
Neel to choose the Yanomami for his big study of the genetics of
"leadership" and differential rates of reproduction among dominant
and
sub-dominant males in a genetically "isolated" human population. There
is
thus a genealogical connection between the the human experiments carried
out by the AEC, and Neel's and Chagnon's Yanomami project, which was
from
the outset funded by the AEC.
Tierney presents convincing evidence that Neel and Chagnon, on their
trip
to the Yanomami in 1968, greatly exacerbated, and probably started,
the
epidemic of measles that killed "hundreds, perhaps thousands" (Tierney's
language-the exact figure will never be known) of Yanomami. The epidemic
appears to have been caused, or at least worsened and more widely spread,
by a campaign of vaccination carried out by the research team, which
used a
virulent vaccine (Edmonson B) that had been counter-indicated by medical
experts for use on isolated populations with no prior exposure to measles
(exactly the Yanomami situation). Even among populations with prior
contact
and consequent partial genetic immunity to measles, the vaccine was
supposed to be used only with supportive injections of gamma globulin.
It was known to produce effects virtually indistinguishable from the
disease of measles itself. Medical experts, when informed that Neel
and his
group used the vaccine in question on the Yanomami, typically refuse
to
believe it at first, then say that it is incredible that they could
have
done it, and are at a loss to explain why they would have chosen such
an
inappropriate and dangerous vaccine. There is no record that Neel sought
any medical advice before applying the vaccine. He never informed the
appropriate organs of the Venezuelan government that his group was
planning
to carry out a vaccination campaign, as he was legally required to
do.
Neither he nor any other member of the expedition, including Chagnon
and
the other anthropologists, has ever explained why that vaccine was
used,
despite the evidence that it actually caused or at a minimum greatly
exacerbated the fatal epidemic.
Once the measles epidemic took off, closely following the vaccinations
with
Edmonson B, the members of the research team refused to provide any
medical
assistance to the sick and dying Yanomami, on explicit orders from
Neel. He
insisted to his colleagues that they were only there to observe and
record
the epidemic, and that they must stick strictly to their roles as
scientists, not provide medical help.
All this is bad enough, but the probable truth that emerges, by
implication, from Tierney's documentation is more chilling. There was,
it
turns out, a compelling theoretical motive for Neel to want to observe
an
epidemic of measles, or comparable "contact" disease, or at least an
outbreak virtually indistinguishable from the real thing-precisely
the
effect that the vaccine he chose was known to cause-and to produce
one for
this purpose if necessary. This motive emerges from Teirney's documentation
of Neel's extreme eugenic theories and his documented statements about
what
he was hoping to find among the Yanomami, interpreted against the
background of his long association with the Atomic Energy Commission's
secret experiments on human subjects. Neel believed that "natural"
human
society (as it existed everywhere before the advent of large-scale
a
gricultural societies and contemporary states with their vast populations)
consisted of small, genetically isolated groups, in which, according
to his
eugenically slanted genetic theories, dominant genes (specifically,
a gene
he believed existed for "leadership" or "innate ability") would have
a
selective advantage, because male carriers of this gene could gain
access
to a disproportionate share of the available females, thus reproducing
their own superior genes more frequently than less "innately able"
males.
The result, supposedly, would be the continual upgrading of the human
genetic stock. Modern mass societies, by contrast, consist of vast
genetically entropic "herds" in which, he theorized, recessive genes
could
not be eliminated by selective competition and superior leadership
genes
would be swamped by mass genetic mediocrity. The political implication
of
this fascistic eugenics is clearly that society should be reorganized
into
small breeding isolates in which genetically superior males could emerge
into dominance, eliminating or subordinating the male losers in the
competition for leadership and women, and amassing harems of brood
females.
A big problem for this program, however, was the tendency, generally
recognized by virtually all qualified population geneticists and
epidemiologists, for small breeding isolates to lack genetic resistance
to
diseases incubated in other groups, and their consequent vulnerability
to
contact epidemics. For Neel, this meant that the emergence of genetically
superior males in small breeding isolates would tend to be undercut
and
neutralized by epidemic diseases to which they would be genetically
vulnerable, while the supposedly genetically entropic mass societies
of
modern democratic states, the antitheses of Neel's ideal
alpha-male-dominated groups, would be better adapted for developing
genetic
immunity to such "contact" diseases. It is known that Neel, virtually
alone
among contemporary geneticists, rejected the genetic (and historical)
evidence for the vulnerability of genetically isolated groups to diseases
introduced through contact from other populations. It is possible that
he
thought that genetically superior members of such groups might prove
to
have differential levels of immunity and thus higher rates of survival
to
imported diseases. In such a case, such exogenous epidemics, despite
the
enormous losses of general population they inflict, might actually
be shown
to increase the relative proportion of genetically superior individuals
to
the total population, and thus be consistent with Neel's eugenic program.
However this may have been, Tierney's well-documented account, in its
entirety, strongly supports the conclusion that the epidemic was in
all
probabilty deliberately caused as an experiment designed to produce
scientific support for Neel's eugenic theory. This remains only an
inference in the present state of our knowledge: there is no "smoking
gun"
in the form of a written text or recorded speech by Neel. It is
nevertheless the only explanation that makes sense of a number of otherwise
inexplicable facts, including Neel's known interest in observing an
epidemic in a small isolated group for which detailed records of genetic
and genealogical relations were available, his otherwise inexplicable
selection of a virulent vaccine known to produce effects virtually
identical with the disease itself, his behavior once the epidemic had
started (insisting on allowing it to run its course unhindered by medical
assistance while meticulously documenting its progress and the genealogical
relations of those who perished and those who survived) and his own
obdurate silence, until his death in February, as to why he carried
out the
vaccination program in the first place, and above all with the lethally
dangerous vaccine.
The same conclusion is reinforced by considering the objectives of the
anthropological research carried out by Chagnon under Neel's initial
direction and continued support. Chagnon's work has been consistently
directed toward portraying Yanomami society as exactly the kind of
originary human society envisioned by Neel, with dominant males (the
most
frequent killers) having the most wives or sexual partners and offspring.
If this pristine, eugenically optimal society could be shown to survive
a
contact epidemic with its structure of dominant male polygynists
essentially intact, regardless of quantitatively serious population
losses,
Neel might plausibly be able to argue that his eugenic social vision
was
vindicated. If the epidemic was indeed produced as an experiment, either
wholly or in part, the genetic studies on the correlation of blood
group
samples and genealogies carried out by Chagnon and some of his students
thus formed integral parts of this massive, and massively fatal, human
experiment.
As another reader of Tierney's ms commented, Mr. Tierney's analysis
is a
case study of the dangers in science of the uncontrolled ego, of lack
of
respect for life, and of greed and self-indulgence. It is a further
extraordinary revelation of malicious and perverted work conducted
under
the aegis of the Atomic Energy Commission.
Tierney's revelations begin, but do not end, with the 1968 epidemic.
There
are many more episodes and sub-plots, almost equally awful, to his
narrative of the antics of anthropologists among the Yanomami. Enough
has
been said by this time, however, for you to see that the Association
is
going to have to make some collective response to this book, both to
the
facts it documents and the probable conclusions it implies.There will
be a
storm in the media, and another in the general scholarly community,
and no
doubt several within anthropology itself. We must be ready. Tierney
devotes
much of the book to a critique of Napoleon Chagnon's work (and actions).
He
makes clear Chagnon has faithfully striven, in his ethnographic and
theoretical accounts of the Yanomami, to represent them as conforming
to
Neel's ideas about the Hobbesian savagery of "natural" human societies
,
and how this constitutes the natural selective context for the rise
to
social dominance and reproductive advantage of males with the gene
for
"leadership" or "innate ability" (thus Chagnon's emphasis on Yanomami
"fierceness" and propensity for chronic warfare, and the supposed
statistical tendency for men who kill more enemies to have more female
sexual/reproductive partners). He documents how all these aspects of
Chagnon's account of the Yanomami are based on false, non-existent
or
misinterpreted data. In other words, Chagnon's main claims about Yanomami
society, the ones that have been so much heralded by sociobiologists
and
other partisans of his work, namely that men who kill more reproduce
more
and have more female partners, and that such men become the dominant
leaders of their communities, are simply not true. Thirdly and most
troublingly, he reports that Chagnon has not stopped with cooking and
re-cooking his data on conflict but has actually attempted to manufacture
the phenomenon itself, actually fomenting conflicts between Yanomami
communities, not once but repeatedly.
In his film work with Asch, for example, Chagnon induced Yanomami to
enact
fights and aggressive behavior for Asch's camera, sometimes building
whole
artificial villages as "sets" for the purpose, which were presented
as
spontaneous slices of Yanomami life unaffected by the presence of the
anthropologists. Some of these unavowedly artificial scenarios, however,
actually turned into real conflicts, partly as a result of Chagnon's
policy
of giving vast amounts of presents to the villages that agreed to put
on
the docu-drama, which distorted their relations with their neighbors
in
ways that encouraged outbreaks of raiding. In sum, most of the Yanomami
conflicts that Chagnon documents, that are the basis of his interpretation
of Yanomami society as a neo-Hobbesian system of endemic warfare, were
caused directly or indirectly by himself: a fact he invariably neglects
to
report. This is not just a matter of bad ethnography or unreflexive
theorizing: Yanomami were maimed and killed in these conflicts, and
whole
communities were disrupted to the point of fission and flight.(Brian
Ferguson has also documented some of this story, but Tierney adds much
new
evidence). As a general point, it is clear that Chagnon's whole Yanomami
oeuvre is more radically continuous with Neel's eugenic theories, and
his
unethical approach to experimentation on human subjects, than appears
simply from a reading of Chagnon's works by themselves.
Chagnon is not the only anthropologist mentioned in Tierney's narrative.
Some of his students, like Hames and Good, are also dealt with (not
so
unfavorably). The F French anthropologist, Jaques Lizot, also gets
a
chapter. He has had nothing to do with Neel or Chagnon (in fact has
been a
trenchant and cogent critic of their work), but he has an Achilles
heel of
his own in the form of a harem of Yanomami boys that he keeps, and
showers
with presents in exchange for sexual favors (he has also been known
to
resort to young girls when boys were unavailable). On the sexual front,
there are also passing references to Chagnon himself demanding that
villagers bring him girls for sex.
There is still more, in the form of collusion by Neel and Chagnon with
sinister Venezuelan politicians attempting to gain control of Yanomami
lands for illegal gold mining concessions, with the anthropologists
providing "cover" for the illegal mine developer as a "naturalist"
collaborating with the anthropological researchers, in exchange for
the
politician's guaranteeing continuing access to the Indians for the
anthropologists.
This nightmarish story -a real anthropological heart of darkness beyond
the
imagining of even a Josef Conrad (though not, perhaps, a Josef
Mengele)--will be seen (rightly in our view) by the public, as well
as most
anthropologists, as putting the whole discipline on trial. As another
reader of the galleys put it, This book should shake anthropology to
its
very foundations. It should cause the field to understand how the corrupt
and depraved protagonists could have spread their poison for so long
while
they were accorded great respect throughout the Western World and
generations of undergraduates received their lies as the introductory
substance of anthropology. This should never be allowed to happen again.
We venture to predict that this reaction is fairly representative of
the
response that will follow the publication of Tierney's book and the
New
Yorker excerpt. Coming as they will less than two months before the
San
Francisco meetings, these publication events virtually guarantee that
the
Yanomami scandal will be at its height at the Meetings. This should
give an
optimal opportunity for the Association to mobilize the membership
and the
institutional structure to deal with it. The writers, both emeritus
members
of the Committee for Human Rights, have arranged with Barbara Johnston,
the
present chair of the CfHR, that the open Forum put on by the Committee
this
year be devoted to the Yanomami case. This seemed the best way to provide
a
venue for a public airing of the scandal, given that the program is
of
course already closed. With Johnston's consent, we have invited Patrick
Tierney to come to the Meetings and be present at the Forum. He has
accepted. He has also agreed to have a copy of the book ms sent to
Johnston, for the use of the CfHR. We have also tentatively agreed
with
Barbara that the CfHR should draft a press release, which the President
(either or both of you) could (if you and the Executive Board approve)
circulate to the media. There are obviously human rights aspects of
this
case that make the CfHR appropriate, but the Ethics Committee, the
Society
for Latin American Anthropology, and the Association for Latina and
Latino
Anthropology should also be notified and involved, separately or jointly.
These obviously do not exhaust the possibilities--- a lot of thought
and
planning remains to be done. Our point is simply that the time to start
is
now.
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