[pepsi_junkie]

Thanks. I looked it up, my memory was off. He wrote for Discover and the column was from 1992, not the 80s. But hey, nearly 30 years ago anyway so I did okay remembering as much as I did. Here it is online for those interested:

Discover Magazine: The Arrow of Disease

He does indeed make the linkage to domestication of animals though not with much in the way of evidence, more of a conclusion he's drawing based on some other relevant material. But basically he's implying that the indians simply didn't have diseases because diseases all come from animals. And of course Europeans were riddled with them because ... animals. I'd like more evidence before I just buy into that. Maybe with a whole book to make the case he's able to put more behind it.

[null and void]

He makes a pretty good case for it in the book, but not just with the Americas.