Seriously, this is another one of those diseases, like porphyria (the CEP variety), that have been wrongly suggested as the root cause of vampire folklore. Still, XP and other diseases give those of us who write vampire fiction fertile grounds for our imaginations. As I understand it, XP differs greatly from albinism in that with the latter, undamaged DNA can still be spliced into UV-damaged cells. There are references to XP in medical books, but remember, the disease is very rare, so the information that exists is often sparse, or at least was until very recently. I've found little.

Porphyria

Angel sez:

Vampires suffer from a form of porphyria, a hereditary disease affecting the blood. The body fails to produce one of the enzymes necessary to make heme, the red pigment in hemeglobin. The symptoms? Extreme sensitivity to light, the lips and gums draw back from the teeth, giving a fanglike appearance, and the only way to treat it (in the Middle Ages) was by drinking large amounts of blood. Also hair may grow on exposed skin, and with the ability to go out only at night (sun exposure causes enough damage to cost the victim his nose) they may have been mistaken for werewolves. Garlic too plays a role. It stimulates heme production (a reason for its inclusion in many herbal blood tonics) and can turn a mild case of porphryia into a severe and painful one. The disease is rare, occuring once in about 200,000 people, and is recessive. Medieval inbreeding may have produced pockets of it in isolated areas. {Stolen nearly verbatim from _More_of_the_Straight_Dope_ by Cecil Adams Berkely press, ISBN 0-345-35145-2. This book contains more information than anyone wants or needs to know on the most bizarre topics imaginable.} Comments? Questions? Hope this helps, Thom.

Hmmm. Yeah, I've read this theory in Cecil Adam's book, too. And what Angel says about the vampire-like symptoms is very true. It just happens to be wrong.

Adams' book wasn't the first place I've come across this theory. Stephen Kaplan of the Vampire Research Center mentioned it in a newspaper interview some years ago, and the *Psychology Today* article did, too. Local newspapers in various communities recycle the so- called porphyria/vampire connection in seasonal Halloween vampire articles.

Also, in her book *American Vampires*, Norine Dresser details the theory and then roundly upbraids its originator, Canadian biochemist David Dolphin. (Some wish Starkist would 'can' him.) Why? Because he's *wrong*, but more importantly, his theory has ostracized and caused the further victimization of those afflicted with porphyria, many of whom are young children. (Remember how cruel young schoolkids can be to their 'peers' who are just a little bit different?) I'm sure Angel didn't intend to further this, and in fact probably didn't know the full story.

Why is the theory wrong? For many reasons, but the main two are:

1. So-called 'real' vampires, as related in Eastern European folklore and elsewhere, were not destroyed by sunlight. (See Dragon's earlier posting about Stoker's *Dracula*, which shows old Drac only weakened by sunlight.) Yet if a porphyria victim ventured into the sunlight, they'd have developed one helluva sunburn. (These days porphyria is treatable, but not curable.)

   According to Anne Rice and others, the sunlight method of vampire 'disposal' was an invention of Hollywood, probably with the first version (silent) of the movie *Nosferatu*. (*Nosferatu* was creepy as hell, but a bad rip-off of Stoker's novel. The scriptwriter(s) even used the same names for the movie's characters: Count Dracula, Johnathan Harker, Lucy, Van Helsing, etc.) After that, horror writers and Hollywood kept amplifying upon the sunlight weakness until they arrived at the modern 'shake & bake' school of vampirism we see today in vamp movies and books. (You've got to admit, though: for all it's inaccuracies, it's one *sweet* little weakness. I, for one, am unwilling to give it up.)

2. Porphyria victims lack heme in their blood. Very true; but drinking all the blood in the world would do them no good. Human beings cannot assimilate heme from blood by drinking it. Our digestive systems were simply not designed to handle this. Porphyria victims do not possess this ability, either. So if drinking blood was indeed the treatment for porphyria in the Middle Ages -- which I doubt -- it couldn't have worked. (Who would have arrived at this *brilliant* blood-drinking treatment deduction, and with what tools or methodology? Could these have been the same people who prescribed bloodletting for various ailments? Maybe medieval barbers bled one patient and fed the 'offal' to the next!)

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