A few years back, in your book More of the Straight Dope, you repeated the story that vampire legends might have been based on victims of the disease porphyria, which causes disfigurement and is a result of certain blood deficiencies. This hypothesis was invented by a biochemist named David Dolphin. It doesn’t hold up under scientific scrutiny, since drinking blood doesn’t actually bring victims any relief, nor do victims crave blood since they don’t intuitively know they have a blood deficiency (it was not known that that caused the disease until relatively recently). However, the story has become very popular and has caused untold suffering for victims of porphyria, who have been branded “vampires” and taunted because of it. You might want to address this in your column when you’ve got the time. –Ed Heil, Okemos, MI
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I could try to weasel on this one, but I may as well fess up. I failed to check out this story before sticking it in my book. (Hey, the guy was making a speech to a scientific society! It was reported in the New York Times!) As a result I was taken in by an explanation that was superficially plausible but on examination turned out to be complete crap.
(2) To avoid sunlight, people with serious cases of porphyria go out only at night, just like Dracula.
Just one problem. People with porphyria aren’t vampires, and there’s no reason to think that the vampires of folklore had the disease (or existed at all). To respond point by point:
(5) No one has proved that garlic worsens porphyria.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): illustration/Slug Signorino.
