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DEANS LETTER
To:
Jane Perlez and Evelyn Rusli
The New York Times
I was very pleased to read your September 8, 2004 article about the Buyat case. Unfortunately, The New York Times, a world-class mass medium, was not very thorough when it published such a sensitive report. The reason is that the report on the health of the residents of Buyat in your article only set forth the version of the NGOs and some of the residents. Why didn’t the writer cross-check with other parties, for example with experts involved in dealing with the health of Buyat’s residents?
People from Unsrat Medical School, who have offered social services a number of times as a sign of their concern for our community, in particular North Sulawesi, have gotten quite a lot of information about the case. We must note that the Medical School’s only concern in this case was to assist the community in finding answers to the questions: “Is it a case of the Minamata Disease? Or is it some strange disease??” as reported in the local media. The Medical School sent in general practitioners and specialists who are experienced in their fields, such as ophthalmologists, internists, pediatricians, surgeons, neurologists and community health experts.
For your information, the results of the examinations conducted over several visits have been discussed in the form of expert team discussions with the president of Sam Ratulangi University, as part of the scientific responsibilities of the Medical School. One regrettable example is that the mass media only publish diagnoses made by general practitioners of something that is not in their field and they do not trust the diagnoses of specialists.
The conclusions concerning the health of the residents of Buyat obtained by the Medical School have been supported by the results found by several teams that went into the area, including the Department of Health from Jakarta, which carried out the same activities. This was disclosed at official discussions held at Sam Ratulangi University on August 21, 2004 entitled NATIONAL SEMINAR AND WORKSHOP ON THE BUYAT BAY CONTROVERSY that were attended by a number of local and national experts.
The conclusions read:
- Environmental health in the Buyat Bay region is very poor from the point of view of behavior and available infrastructure
- Community education and knowledge about health is very poor.
- The diseases found are diseases typically found in other regions, especially coastal regions, which have poor sanitation and low economic levels.
- The pathology of the tumors indicates benign tumors.
- No signs of Minamata Disease have been found.
- Research is needed to monitor and evaluate the community’s long-term health status.
I hope this information will be useful to The New York Times. If you want further confirmation, we are willing to provide further clarification.
Manado, September 24, 2004
Dean of UNSRAT’s Medical School
[signature]
Prof. Dr. J. M. L. Umboh, MS
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