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To: Louise Lamphere, President, American Anthropological
Association,
[email protected]
Don Brenneis, President-elect, American Anthropological
Association, [email protected]
Sponsors
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,
[email protected]
Leslie Sponsel, Professor of Anthropology at the University of
Hawaii,
Manoa. Chair of the AAA Committee for Human Rights 1992-1996,
[email protected]
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).
Sponsors
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 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
and planning remains to be done. Our point is simply that the time start
is now.
Rosemary Gianno, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Sociology/Anthropology
Rhodes Hall Keene State College Keene NH 03435-3400 USA [email protected] Phone: (603) 358-2510 Fax: (603) 358-2184
George Aaron Broadwell [email protected]
Anthropology; Linguistics and Cognitive Science
University at Albany, SUNY
Albany, NY 12222 | 518-442-4711
Web page: http://www.albany.edu/anthro/fac/broadwell.htm
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