The AAA ethics committee has developed guidelines for fieldwork which in essence state that an anthropologist should do no harm to a study population. The Tierney book makes accusations that imply that ethical behavior goes beyond simply "not harming" anthropological study populations.

1) The responsibility to provide assistence when the study subjects experience health emergencies. The book criticizes scientists and journalists for not spending more time and resources fighting the Yanomamo measles epidemic, and not getting more involved in alleviating observed health problems while doing fieldwork. The same charge could be leveled at all observers (eg. journalists, tourists, missionaries, those who become informed through secondary accounts, etc.) who encounter suffering but don’t take "sufficient" action to alleviate that suffering. Many anthropologists do provide healthcare for study populations and other forms of economic assistence sometimes at great cost to themselves. Other anthropologists feel uncomfortable with the notion that they are responsible for providing services that should be the job of other organizations suppossedly dedicated to such things (eg. governments, missionaries, health and human rights organizations). Some sincerely feel that it is their job to observe and not to interfere in events that affect study societies, and some simply fail to obtain neccesary training to be able to provide health assistance to study populations. If anthropologists are expected to provide health assistance, who will provide the funds for medicines or transportation and pay for lost work time? Should anthropologists lobby major funding agencies (eg. NSF) to always provide some funds with each research project that can be diverted into such assistence? The AAA needs to seriously consider this issue, there are no clearcut answers and every anthropologist who has ever done fieldwork has been forced to make difficult choices in this area.

2) Fairness of renumeration for research cooperation. The book suggests that Chagnon did little to help the Yanomamo during his 25 years of research with them and that the organization he created, Yanomamo Survival Fund, intended to help only by providing data that might be useful to other groups assisting the Yanomamo. The lack of direct assistance to the Yanomamo community appears to be a complaint voiced by many Yanomamo critics of Chagnon. Again the same criticism could be aimed at non-anthropologists who make incomes off native peoples (eg. journalists, missionaries, staff of indigenous rights organizations, etc.) Many anthropologists make their entire careers off work done in traditional study populations that are only paid direct informant fees during a fieldwork period. Because lifetime earings of a professional anthropologist can be considerable (including salary, book and film royalties, etc) and informant fees are extremely small by comparison, this opens anthropologists up to a charge of exploitation of native peoples. This charge is reinforced by the commonly held anthropological belief that the value of specific research results to the target population is payment enough for the access and cooperation received from the study population. Most traditional populations in contrast see little practical value to the research results produced by anthropologists regardless of theoretical perspective and research topic area. The AAA has never specifically provided guidelines on the level of renumeration (beyond informant fees) that is appropriate through time to study populations, and how that renumeration should be linked to the overall earnings to a researcher as a result of his/her focus on a particular population.

3) Considering the impact of material assistance. The book accuses Chagnon of fomenting violence by giving gifts to some Yanomamo communities. Since it is impossible to give equal material support to all communities or all individuals at any field site, should anthropologists be held responsible for jealousies, and competition over resources that they distribute, or the acts committed by individuals who gain advantage through their material rewards. This is a general dilema faced by all organizations and agencies who provide material assistance to groups (including national governments). The implication of the charges in the book is that anthropologists should give no gifts at all to avoid conflicts which may be exacerbated by that gift giving. Most study populations would find that suggestion cruel and self serving (since it would save a lot of money to anthropological researchers), and the refusal to "pay" for services rendered would be considered unethical behavior by many. But all researchers who do fieldwork need to carefully consider the potential impacts of their gifts on study populations, and the AAA has no clear guidelines here.

4) The impact of factual data about a study population. The book criticizes Chagnon for publishing information and viewpoints about Yanomamo warfare which dammage the reputation of the Yanomamo and can be used by enemies of the Yanomamo to justify denying them certain rights and priveledges. Chagnon counters that he is simply publishing factual data and it would be deceitful and scientifically unethical to hide or change results. The AAA has not adequately adressed this dilema, and as a result there are several other similar controversies in anthropology (eg. reports of cannibalism in the Southwest). While anthropologists have a responsibility to publish the truth they also need to be sensitive to the fact that some truths about any target population can be potentially damaging. We suggest that a compromise can be struck whereby important scientific results are diseminated within a scientific communty but not intentionally played up in the media to a wide public audience.

5) Informed consent. The book accuses a variety of researchers of collecting data without adequate informed consent. A similar charge has been leveled at other anthropological researchers using native DNA recently (see New Scientist, Sept 2000). Some scientists believe that informed consent consists only of an explanation of the methodology, procedures used on study subjects, and information about potential dangers of those procedures. As long as this information is provided and study subjects are not harmed or disenfranchized in any way, the consent is legitimate. Cultural anthropologists often obtain no informed consent for their studies, but assume that if the community tolerates their presence it implies informed consent. At the other end of the spectrum some people believe that informed consent includes not only an explanation of data collection methods but a detailed explaination of the research topics that will be examined with the data collected from a study subject. If this view were taken literally many studies could never be carried out (because informing subjects will sometimes change the character of the data gotten from them), and no post facto analysis of any field data could ever be done (since subjects wouldn’t have been informed at the time that a particular use of the data was part of the research). This version of informed consent would probably eliminate all behavioral research in the world (since the behavior of study subjects would always be affected by knowing why they were being observed) and would eliminate a huge number of useful scientific studies done using data initially collected for a different purpose. The use of data collected by others for analysis into a new topic would be considered unethical, essentially eliminating a huge fraction of current research. Finally, no scientifically sophistocated studies could ever be done on relatively uneducated populations because they could not give true informed consent (implying that they understood the purpose of the research). For example no DNA studies could be done on any population that didn’t know what DNA is and understand the basics of modern genetics. Both extremes of the informed consent debate seem unfair or unrealistic, but the AAA should provide some guidelines on what exactly constitutes valid informed consent in anthropological studies. The same standards that apply to material data collection (blood, DNA, etc.) should apply to the collection of any information about a study group.