News

Troubling Treat: Guam mystery disease from bat entrée?

By Susan Milius

- More than 2 years ago

A famous unsolved medical puzzle of last century–why a neurological disease spiked on Guam–may hinge on the local tradition of serving boiled bat.

BAT DINER. Flying fox feeds at a cycad. M. Tuttle, Bat Conservation International/http://www.batcon.org

After World War II, doctors noticed that the Chamorro people of Guam experienced 100 times as high an incidence of diseases resembling amyotrophic lateral sclerosis than people in the continental United States do.