Wade Davis - Quality of Scientific Work

Quality of Scientific Work

In 1983, Davis first advanced his hypothesis that tetrodotoxin (TTX) poisoning could explain the existence of Haitian zombies. This idea has been controversial and his popular 1985 follow up book (The Serpent and the Rainbow) elaborating upon this claim has been criticized for a number of scientific inaccuracies. One of these is the suggestion that Haitian witchdoctors can keep “zombies” in a state of pharmacologically induced trance for many years. As part of his Haitian investigations, Davis commissioned a grave robbery of a recently buried child. (Dead human tissue is supposed to be a part of the “zombie powder” used by witchdoctors to produce zombies.) This has been criticized in the professional literature as a breach of ethics.

The strictly scientific criticism of Davis’ zombie project has focused on the claims about the chemical composition of the “zombie powder”. Several samples of the powder were analyzed for TTX levels by experts in 1986. They reported that only “insignificant traces of tetrodotoxin in the samples of ‘zombie powder’ which were supplied for analysis by Davis” and that “it can be concluded that the widely circulated claim in the lay press to the effect that tetrodotoxin is the causal agent in the initial zombification process is without factual foundation”. Davis’ claims were subsequently defended by other scientists doing further analyses and these findings were criticized in turn for poor methodology and technique by the original skeptics. Aside from the question of whether or not “zombie powder” contains significant amounts of TTX, the underlying concept of “tetrodotoxin zombification” has also been questioned more directly on a physiological basis. TTX, which blocks sodium channels on the neural membrane, produces numbness, slurred speech, and possibly paralysis or even respiratory failure and death in severe cases. As an isolated pharmacological agent, it is not known to produce the trance-like or “mental slave” state typical of zombies in Haitian mythology, or Davis’ descriptions, although one might consider the effects of set and setting in combination with the drug.

Davis did not suggest, however, that the zombie powder containing TTX was used for maintaining "mental slaves" but for producing the initial death and resurrection that convinced the victim and those who knew them that they had become zombies. The effects of fugu TTX poisoning in Japan agree with the reports of zombification. 'Zombies' such as Clairvius Narcisse were, according to Davis, kept biddable by regular doses of the poisonous 'zombi cucumber', Datura stramonium which produces amnesia, delirium and suggestibility.