The Murder of the Indians of Brazil

Already facing the threat of extinction from disease-contacts with whites, the Indians of Brazil have also been the target of deliberate extermination efforts with bacteriological weapons. Brazilian plantation owners, adventurers and government officials are accused of attempting to take over valuable Indian lands by deliberately introducing pathogenic organisms into the Amazon basin tribes.

Smallpox, influenza, tuberculosis and measles, often transmitted by intentionally contaminated gifts, were brought into the Mato Grosso area; lacking immunologic defenses against these diseases, the Indians were often fatally vulnerable to the resulting epidemics. The extermination attempts, a well-kept secret outside Brazil until quite recently, date back at least 13 years. Last winter, Dr. Patrick Braun, Medical Attache to the French Department of Overseas Territory, told Medical Tribune of the mass murder conspiracy. Dr. Braun has examined files of the Departments of Agriculture and Interior, and reviewed a comprehensive 5,115-page investigative report by the Brazilian government.

In a report of the Interior Department, General Albuquerque Lima, former Interior Minister, wrote that “the refinements of this cr...