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Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2000 23:01:36 -0400 The charge by Patrick Tierney in his book "Darkness in El Dorado" that
James Neel "used a measles vaccine on the Yanomami that helped spread an
epidemic killing 'hundreds, perhaps thousands'" is completely false. Neel
administered a licensed US vaccine (Edmonston B which was given
successfully to nearly 19 million infants and children in this country and
internationally between 1963 and 1975) in a scientifically valid attempt to
interrupt an epidemic that had already begun. In the scientific studies of
this vaccine over and over again it was demonstrated that there was never
any communicability or transmission of the vaccine virus to susceptible
close contacts. The vaccine could not "spread an epidemic", let alone start
one. Samuel L. Katz MD, co-developer (with Nobel laureate John F.
Enders) of measles vaccine.
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