According to a new study, signs of a strong nerve agent have been found in Neruda’s tooth. However, the certainty of the cause of death still requires further analyses, for which the researchers hope to get permission from a Chilean judge.
A poet who died during the Chilean coup in September 1973 Pablo Neruda the family has long suspected that his death was a murder. A recent study gives further impetus to the doubts.
Traces of the bacterium Clostridium botulinum have been found in Neruda’s tooth. The botulinum it produces is a very powerful nerve agent, which has been used, among other things, as a biological weapon.
Neruda suffered from advanced prostate cancer. However, the family felt it would be too much of a coincidence that cancer would have taken his life just 12 days after the general Augusto Pinochet led by soldiers had usurped the power of the president Salvador Allende from the socialist administration. Neruda was his advisor.
After Allende’s death, Neruda planned to escape to Mexico, but the day before he was to leave, he was admitted to the hospital and died there, according to his death certificate, of prostate cancer, which had been diagnosed four years earlier.
Canadian McMaster University (you will switch to another service) and researchers from the University of Copenhagen already stated in their previous report in 2017 that the cause of death was not correct.
So they continued to investigate the real cause by looking for signs of toxins, and especially C. botulinum, in the bones and teeth taken from Neruda’s body after his tomb was opened.
Based on the analyses, Neruda’s molar had traces of C. botulinum’s gene pool. The results have now been presented for consideration by a Chilean court judge.
The Chilean government said in 2016 that Pablo Neruda’s death was possibly, and even very likely, murder. At least for now, researchers are not ready to declare that they are sure about it. Molecular geneticist at McMaster University Hendrik Poinar underlines that definitive proof is still lacking.
According to him, the bacteria could also have gotten into Neruda’s remains from the soil after his death. The researchers also want to rule out the possibility that the genetic fragment left in their wounds is from a strain of C. botulinum that does not produce the toxin.
On the other hand, the soil samples that were taken from around the body contained only very small amounts of C. botulinum, and the strains found were different from those found in Neruda’s tooth, Poinar says.
An alternative to spiking the poison is food that contained C. botulinum, says a forensic geneticist from the University of Copenhagen. Marie-Louise Kampmann. C. botulinum thrives, for example, in poorly sealed cans, he points out.
We have used methods that have been built in other studies to trace the plague bacterium from samples of people who died 700 years ago.
Hendrik Poinar
Neruda’s body was exhumed more than a decade ago when his chauffeur Manuel Araya had said Proceso magazine (you will switch to another service) in an interview that Neruda had been given some kind of vaccine just hours before his death, and that the Chilean Communist Party had filed a criminal complaint.
An international team of researchers said ten years ago that no signs of poisoning had been found. The analyzes had looked for signs of about two thousand chemical substances, including arsenic.
However, the investigation of the cause of death was not left to that, the judge gave another team of investigators the task of looking for possible signs of biological poisons. After the findings of the now released report, investigators hope that the judge will allow the investigations to continue.
The highly developed research methods provide opportunities that were not even discussed during the first analyzes seven years ago, says Poinar In the Nature magazine (you switch to another service).
The researchers have challenges, however, because they only have the genome to analyze and the sample is badly corroded. So far, only a third of the bacterium’s DNA has been assembled.
Listen from Areena:
Poet Pablo Neruda became a successful writer and diplomat at a young age. However, life did not always go as well as writing poems. What kind of man can be found behind the hero myth and the books?