JoeB wrote:

Zwaarddijk wrote:

JoeB wrote:
I agree. They're going to lose their isolated culture sooner or later anyway, better to do it in a planned fashion rather than have them be 'contacted' by the local chainsaw-wielding lumberjack.

These "controlled manners" generally lead to them all dying in everyday diseases (for which they lack immunity) anyway, so ... good fucking luck with that.

Surely vaccinations are possible? At least they could try and keep them alive rather than have them come into contact with whomever walks by sneezing and coughing.. (which will happen sooner or later, especially given the increasing interest in these people, with photographers going to increasing lengths to get better and closer shots as if they're wildlife..)

Scot Dutchy wrote:

Zwaarddijk wrote:

NineBerry wrote:

Zwaarddijk wrote:
These "controlled manners" generally lead to them all dying in everyday diseases (for which they lack immunity) anyway, so ... good fucking luck with that.

Do you actually have any source for that?

Beatriz Huertas Castillo's Indigenous Peoples in Isolation in the Peruvian Amazon should be a good start.

Where is link to the document? Quoting a title of a book is not a link.

Beatriz Huertas Castillo wrote:Vulnerability to illness

"There outside in the light are the illnesses, here in the dark, there are none". (Tomoklo, pers. comm., 2000)

Outbreaks of illness has been one of the major reasons behind the demographic collapse of the Amerindian peoples. [...]
In 1946, the North American Baptist Mission once more gathered them (the Huachipaeri) together, triggering a smallpox epidemic two years later that once more reduced the population to between 70 and 200 people. Today the Huachipaeri number no more than 100. the Arakmbut, known as Mashco by the missionaries, also succumbed to illnesses from the very start of their intrusion. The Toyeri lost the majority of their population in 1935, after being taken to the Lago Valencia mission where they caught measles. ...
And yet stories of entire populations being decimated through outbreaks of illness are not a thing of the past. The indigenous populations currently living in isolation share this unfortunate characteristic, and in no half measures.
The most notorious case occurred among the Nahua population of the Manu River when, between 1983 and 1985, having entered into direct contact with loggers and been taken to Sepahua, a group of four indigenous individuals returned to their villages with influenza and whooping cough, infecting the other members of their settlements. In August 1984, approximately 200 cases of pneumonia, malaria and whooping cough were noted in the upper Mishagua. As a result, around 300 people, that is, between 50 and 60% of the population, died. The elderly and children were most affected. In this regard, a report of the SIL EDIT:[(that is the Summer Institute of Linguistics)] states that:
"During this eight-week period, approximately 200 people appeared. Of those 130 were very ill indeed and needed intensive care. The SIL team was on the alert 24 hours a day, and made 3 visits a day of 2 to 3 hours each to administer injections and other medication and to see how their patients were. During this time, they were faced by many crises. [...]". Today, almost 20 years since this initial contact ,the population has scarcely recovered. They are all the more isolated, and all the more vulnerable to illnesses, given that thier bodies have not developed the necessary defence systems to combat them. Even indigenous communities that are integrated into national society but remote, such as Tayacome and Yomibato, inside the Manu National Park, are no spared. It is common for a flu-epidemic to break out following a visit by scientists or the Park authorities.

NineBerry wrote:There's vaccination against smallpox, right?