Kuru: The Science and the Sorcery (ATOM Study Guide)

Kuru: The Science and the Sorcery is a medical detective story that unearths cannibalism and sorcery during the course of research into a tragic epidemic in Papua New Guinea.

We follow Australian scientist Michael Alpers deep into the jungle and into a mysterious world of tribal conflict. The research into the disease reveals a chain of discoveries that are stranger than fiction and which turn scientific understanding upside down and result in two Nobel Prizes. It's a story that links strange animal diseases to terrifying fatal human diseases, and that links all humans to a remote past of cannibal practices.

Synopsis

In 1961 a young Australian medical researcher, Michael Alpers, puts up his hand to go and research a strange new disease occurring in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Here he teams up with an American, Dr Carleton Gajdusek, who has been in the local Fore region since 1957. For Michael it is the beginning of a lifelong obsession.

The two men find themselves in the middle of a major epidemic. It is killing over 200 people a year and mainly targets women and children. The Fore people name the disease 'kuru' – their word for 'shivering'. They believe it is caused by sorcery.

Michael and Carleton are baffled by the disease. There are no scientific disciplines to guide them as they attempt to unravel its mysteries. By pure chance, a link is made to a strange transmissible disease found in sheep that is known as scrapie. The two kuru researchers embark on a ten-year experiment to see if the fatal degenerative brain disease in humans could be transmissible, as scrapie is.

Curriculum relevance

The documentary would be an excellent resource to show to middle, senior and tertiary students of:

• Science
• History
• Anthropology
• Indigenous cultures
• Biology
• Medicine.