The novel Deadly Feasts, by Richard Rhodes, accounts the progression of research done on a mysterious disease called Kuru. Kuru affected the Fore tribe of New Guinea. The book also gives detail of the effects of this research on other similar neurological disorders. The research done to discover the cause of Kuru also provided evidence for causes of other diseases, for example bovine spongiform encephalopathy. This would eventually play into everyday life for millions of people across the globe.

Kuru was first noticed in 1957, the first scientist to document it was Dr. Carleton Gajdusek. In New Guinea, Australia, a tribe of people known as the Fore participated in a strange ritual. The dead were eaten, mostly by the women, soon after death. In this tribe, people, mostly women and small children, came down with a mysterious disorder, which was attributed, by the tribesmen, to witch craft. The victims all had similar symptoms including shivering, tremors, blurred vision, pathological laughter, and death. The researchers had come upon a new disease. The symptoms observed gave evidence of a brain disorder. Therefore, brain tissue samples of the victims were taken. Gajdusek noticed a similar pattern in all the samples, he called the microscopic knots of protein amyloid plaques. These amyloid plaques reminded him of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.

Doctors Creutzfeldt and Jakob discovered a condition whose symptoms were dazed expressions, silly giggling, twitching eyes, tremors, jerking muscles, unsteady walk, and eventually death. All these symptoms coincided with the symptoms of Kuru. The disease was caused by physical damage to the brain, upon autopsy, no inflammation of the brain was seen, however, the presence of glial cells was noticed throughout the brain. Glial cells are the brain's repair tissues that can sometimes be destructive. Along with the glial cells, CJD patients' brains were also full of holes. The holes were given no notice at this point because of the possibility of their occurrence during the pickling process. Iggor Klatzo was the scientist who first made the connection between Kuru and CJD. His observation came from the similar symptoms and the star-like plaques in the brain.

The next connection was made with diseases present in animals. Sheep are prone to a disease known as scrapie. Veterinary pathologist Bill Hadlow noticed that scrapie caused spongiform degeneration and astrogliosis, the star-like plaques. The similarities between Kura and scrapie were striking. Hadlow wrote Gajdusek informing him of the parallels and suggesting that researchers start trying to infect primates with Kuru. The next animal disease to be related to Kuru was transmissible mink encephalopathy. Mink with TME showed some of the same symptoms as sheep with scrapie. Brain tissues also showed the same sponginess and astrogliosis. Kuru would eventually be related to bovine spongiform encephalopathy, which can be passed on to humans. Finally, after these connections were made, research was started to transmit scrapie to other animals and Kuru to primates.

Interaction among scientists played a key role in the attempt to discover the cause of Kuru. The researchers involved at times tried to help each other and sometimes tried to hold each other back. Even during the instances when one scientist was genuinely trying to help another, there was always a sense of suspicion on someone's part. Dr. Bill Hadlow wrote a letter to Dr. Carleton Gajdusek explaining the connection he saw between Kuru and scrapie. Hadlow also explained that scrapie could be transmitted from sheep to sheep and sheep to goat. He hypothesized that Kuru was the same and suggested that Gajdusek try to inoculate primates with Kuru. Gajdusek had never heard of scrapie, but he did not want to admit his ignorance. He implied to Hadlow that those .types of experiments had already begun. At a conference, Gajdusek later admitted that this had not been true. His competitive nature compelled Gajdusek to shade the truth about his experiments, however, the letter did cause him to consider Kuru in an entirely new manner. Another incredibly competitive scientist was Dr. Stanley Prusiner, a biochemist and neurologist who lost a patient to CJD. He became interested in the disease and also began to study scrapie. Prusiner pursued a Nobel Prize relentlessly. He studies virology and began to work with Bill Hadlow trying to isolate the scrapie agent. Prusiner published a paper in April 1982 on the infectious agent present in scrapie. He had done his research with the help of other scientists. One of the major points of his paper actually came from research performed by Gajdusek. Prusiner was listed as the sole author after a collaborator removed his name because of the jumps made in conclusions. Prusiner took Gajdusek's research and named the agent he described the prion. Prusiner named the infectious agent and, although it was risky at the time, he was correct. Prusiner was given the Nobel Prize. Although most of his research was not original, the name was and Prusiner became one of the most hated men in science.

The competitive nature of science was exhibited brilliantly in the class exercise in ethics. The class was split into groups and told to replicate the structure in the next room. This required the teams to run back and forth between rooms remembering the sequence to build the structure. The first team to publish would win the race. A perfect example of competitiveness was one of the opposing team members. One of the members of my team was confused as to where to go to find the blocks. She asked a classmate who pointed down the hallway. When she turned to go he promptly went the other direction to the real location of the blocks. Science is sometimes just a race, not every time do the smartest scientists win, sometimes it is just who gets there first.

In class the Internet was referenced to find new reports of material covered in the book. There are cases of CJD all around the world, some even in Georgia. Some of the most interesting information was found on mad cow disease (BSE). In the United Kingdom, cases of CJD and mad cow disease were tallied annually. The numbers of total CJD and BSE cases rose sharply in the mid 1990s (http://www.cjd.ed.ac.uk/figures.htm). After causes of mad cow disease were identified and measures were taken to prevent it, the number came back down. This seems odd. In the years before the scare, rates of mad cow disease were not that much higher than they are now. However, when media attention was given to BSE, that rate/ rose. If people were scared into not eating beef, the rate should have dropped drastically, as did meat consumption. The rate did not drop, it increased. This leads to the conclusion that during the media frenzy, mad cow disease was diagnosed more freely. An alternative conclusion would be that before the media frenzy doctors were not as informed about BSE and misdiagnosed the disease.