Hacker Cinema
Kuru: The Science and the Sorcery
2010 · Film · documentary · 52 min
Directed by Rob Bygott
Australian scientist Michael Alpers dedicated over 50 years to researching Kuru, an obscure and incurable brain disease unique to the Fore people of New Guinea. Kuru was once thought to be a psychosomatic illness, an infection, a genetic disorder, even a sorcerer's curse, but Alpers' findings pointed to cannibalism as the culprit. Yet a recent discovery has proven to be even more disturbing: the malady is linked to mad cow disease and its human equivalent, variant CJD. With a decades-long incubation period, could a larger outbreak be on its way?
1 positivefrom 1 commenter
Where to watch
No streaming data for this title.
1 comment on Hacker News
If you've not seen it Kuru: The Science and The Sorcery is an interesting documentary of Mike Alpers time in PNG
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJrD1JcmUiE
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Alpers
* https://stmarkscollege.com.au/news/remembering-professor-michael-alpers-ao-distinguished-collegian-and-pioneering-medical-scientist/
As a small person in the 1960s / 1970s I'd go along with my aunts on supply runs to PNG for him and others, I met his family in Perth in the early 1980s