1999 Articles

Sorcery and science: responses to kuru and other epidemics

Klitzman, Robert L.

Over upcoming years, other epidemics will arise, as technology alters environments and human lives, linking formerly isolated regions ofthe world such that infectious agents harbored in one ecosystem can escape to others. New plagues will no doubt prompt fear, resistance, and denial, furthering the spread of disease, and inspiring desperate searches for answers and solutions, such as I saw in New Guinea.

New Guineans dismissed myviews and I could dismiss theirs. But similarities remain.