Tiriyo (Trio) shaman in southern Suriname. (Photo by R. Butler)
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MEDICINAL PLANTS
By Rhett Butler | Last updated July 22, 2012
Plants have broader uses than as just food and a genetic reservoir. Increasingly, rainforest plants, and to a lesser
extent rainforest animals, are the source of compounds useful for medicinal purposes.
The rainforest has been
called the ultimate chemical laboratory with each rainforest species experimenting with various chemical defenses
to ensure survival in the harsh world of natural selection. They have been synthesizing these compounds for millions
of years to protect against predators, infection, pests, and disease. This makes rainforest species an excellent
reservoir of medicines and chemical templates with which researchers can create new drugs.
Rainforest plants have already provided tangible evidence of their potential with remedies for a range of medical
problems, from childhood leukemia to toothaches. Seventy percent of the plants identified as having anti-cancer characteristics
by the US National Cancer Institute are found only in the tropical rainforest. Some examples of rainforest plants
responsible for 25 percent of the drugs used by Western medicine are included
in this table.
Despite all their promise, fewer than 10 percent of tropical forest plant species (and 0.1 percent of animal species) have been
examined for their chemical compounds and medicinal value. Once a plant with the desired qualities is discovered,
it is rigorously analyzed for its chemical structure, then goes through clinical trials for effectiveness and safety before
getting final approval from the US FDA. Nevertheless, using rainforest species for derivation and synthesis of
medicinal compounds, is becoming a mainstream process. In 1983 there were no U.S. pharmaceutical firms involved
in research on such plants. Today there are well over 100 corporations, and U.S. government agencies are studying
rainforest plants for their medicinal capacities.
One such organization, the U.S. National Cancer Institute, maintains screening of rainforest species for anti-cancer
and anti-HIV
effects. Because there are so many plant species, researchers concentrate on close relatives of plants
already known to produce useful compounds. Another method is to choose plants that display characteristics indicating
they have an effect on animals, like deterring insect pests. Many chemicals toxic to insects show bio-activity
in humans meaning they may have drug promise.
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(10/04/2010) In all the discussions of saving the world's biodiversity from extinction, one point is often and surprisingly forgotten: the importance of the world's species in providing humankind with a multitude of life-saving medicines so far, as well as the certainty that more vital medications are out there if only we save the unheralded animals and plants that contain cures unknown. Already, species have provided humankind everything from quinine to aspirin, from morphine to numerous cancer and HIV-fighting drugs. "As the ethnobotanist Dr. Mark Plotkin commented, the history of medicine can be written in terms of its reliance on and utilization of natural products," physician Christopher Herndon told mongabay.com. Herndon is co-author of a recent paper in the journal Biotropica, which calls for policy-makers and the public to recognize how biodiversity underpins not only ecosystems, but medicine.
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(11/10/2009) Ethnobotanists, people who study the relationship between plants and people, have long documented the extensive use of medicinal plants by indigenous shamans in places around the world, including the Amazon. But few have reported on the actual process by which traditional healers diagnose and treat disease. A new paper, published in the Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine, moves beyond the cataloging of plant use to examine the diseases and conditions treated in two indigenous villages deep in the rainforests of Suriname. The research, which based on data on more than 20,000 patient visits to traditional clinics over a four-year period, finds that shamans in the Trio tribe have a complex understanding of disease concepts, one that is comparable to Western medical science. Trio medicine men recognize at least 75 distinct disease conditions—ranging from common ailments like fever [këike] to specific and rare medical conditions like Bell's palsy [ehpijanejan] and distinguish between old (endemic) and new (introduced since contact with the outside world) illnesses. In an interview with mongabay.com, Lead author Christopher Herndon, currently a reproductive medicine physician at the University of California, San Francisco, says the findings are a testament to the under-appreciated healing prowess of indigenous shaman.
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Ethnobotanists, people who study the relationship between plants and people, have long been aware that rainforest dwellers have an astounding knowledge of medicinal plants. For thousands of years, indigenous groups have used rainforest plants extensively for their health needs—the peoples of Southeast Asian forests used 6,500 species, while Northwest Amazonian forest dwellers used 1,300 species for medicinal purposes. Today pharmacologists and ethnobotanists work with native healers and shamans in identifying prospects for development of new drugs.
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Indigenous uses of plants can also offer hints of potentially useful plants. For thousands of years, indigenous
groups have extensively used rainforest plants for their health needs. They have experimented with a wide range
of plants. The peoples of Southeast Asian forests used 6,500 species, while Northwest Amazonian forest dwellers
used at least 1,300 species for medicinal purposes. The success rate for discovering medicinal plants with traditional uses
is high because rainforest peoples, notably shamans, have been experimenting with various combinations and dosages
for generations. A 1990s study in Samoa found that 86 percent of the plants used by local healers yielded biological
activity in humans.
The National Cancer Institute can rapidly screen compounds for activity against 60 cancer types. When the compound
shows promise, chemists isolate the molecules responsible for the activity and then compare the molecular structure
with that of known chemicals. Sometimes the molecule already has been identified, but is not used medicinally;
at other times the molecule will be altered to produce the desired action. If the molecule has potential as a drug,
it is tested for certain characteristics including safety, effectiveness, and side effects. If it passes those
tests, a corporation or government agency must finance bringing the drug to market—a process that costs more than $800 million and may take a decade or more. Before reaching the public market, the drug must go through rigorous clinical trials. According to the Global Bioscience Development Institute, for every 10,000 to 20,000 compounds screened for possible activity in the basic-research stage, about 250 make it as far as pre-clinical testing. Of those, five drug candidates make it as far as clinical trials, and only one becomes an actual FDA-approved drug. Thus the process of bringing a rainforest drug, or any pharmaceutical product, to
market is long and costly.
Nevertheless, commercial sales from such drugs can generate huge sums: the two chemicals derived
from rosy periwinkle bring in revenues of US$160 million per year. Large companies usually benefit the most from
such projects while the local peoples and shamans get little in return. For example, virtually no money from the Vincristine (Oncovin)
and vinblastine derived from the rosy periwinkle made it back to the country of origin, Madagascar. However, once
the drug patent expired, Madagascar was able to begin exporting tons of crude periwinkle annually.
In the past such exploitation, known as biopiracy, was the rule. While drug companies raked in millions in revenue,
the community that found the plant producing the drug was left with token baseball hats, beads, or aspirin as compensation.
One of the biggest biopiracy coups occurred last century when the British smuggled (at least Brazilians allege)
rubber tree seeds out of Brazil to their colony of Malaysia, ending the lucrative Amazonian monopoly on rubber.
In the 1990s a bitter patent battle has erupted between an American entrepreneur and COICA, an organizations representing indigenous peoples from the Amazon region, over ayahuasca or yagé. Yagé is a celebrated hallucinogenic, derived from a rainforest liana (Banisteriopsis caapi) and other plants, which is used ceremonially by Amazonians. The biopiracy incident was initiated in 1986 when American Loren Miller visited Ecuador and took a sample of
yagé without permission and then acquired a patent from the U.S. government. Miller subsequently launched the
International Plant Medicine Corporation to commercialize yagé for psychiatric and cardiac pharmaceuticals.
COICA argued Miller had no right to patent a plant compound that has been used for generations
by indigenous peoples. Complicating the debate was the refusal of the U.S. Senate to ratify the UN Convention on
Biodiversity, which has been ratified by more than 100 countries including Ecuador, where the Yagé sample
was acquired. The UN agreement includes the recognition of intellectual property rights of indigenous peoples. The U.S. Patent Office (USPTO) eventually overturned the patent in 1999, only reinstating it in 2001. The patent expired in 2003.
This exploitation without compensation has been the historical trend, although today there is more awareness on the need to consult with indigenous practitioners and ensure that benefits reach local people. Most tropical countries lack the expertise to identify, develop, and commercialize drugs derived from rainforest plants, so drug research and development will likely continue to be dominated by industrialized countries. However compensation for the country of the product's origin must be addressed if the sources of these products —the tropical rainforest—are to be preserved.
Several pharmaceutical companies have agreed to share revenues with local people. The drug Prostialin, isolated
in 1984 from a Samoan rainforest tree, has exhibited strong activity against HIV in tests. With its discovery,
the National Cancer Institute has guaranteed that part of the royalties from the sale of the drug will be returned
to the Samoans. As a result, Samoa fiftieth national park was established to encourage local healers
to use medicinal plants in a sustainable way, in order to pass their knowledge on to the next generation. Similarly,
in 1991, Merck and Company invested $1 million in Costa Rica's National Biodiversity Institute (INBio) to assist in a cataloging
and screening effort. The institute collects and identifies organisms, sending samples from the most promising
species to Merck laboratories for medicinal assay. If the compounds prove useful and the resulting drugs make it
to market, the Costa Rican government is guaranteed some of the royalties, which will be set aside for conservation
projects.
More information on medicinal plants >>
Review questions:
- Why are plants a good source for medicines?
- What is biopiracy?
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(07/28/2008) Deep in the Suriname rainforest, an innovative conservation group is working with indigenous tribes to protect their forest home and culture using traditional knowledge combined with cutting-edge technology. The Amazon Conservation Team (ACT) is partnering with the Trio, an Amerindian group that lives in the remote Suriname-Brazil border area of South America, to develop programs to protect their forest home from illegal gold miners and encroachment, improve village health, and strengthen cultural ties between indigenous youths and elders at a time when such cultures are disappearing even faster than rainforests. In June 2008 mongabay.com visited the community of Kwamalasamutu in Suriname to see ACT's programs in action. During the visit, Amasina, a Trio shaman who works with ACT, answered some questions about his role as a traditional healer in the village.
(10/31/2006) Tropical rainforests house hundreds of thousands of species of plants, many of which hold promise for their compounds which can be used to ward off pests and fight human disease. No one understands the secrets of these plants better than indigenous shamans -medicine men and women - who have developed boundless knowledge of this library of flora for curing everything from foot rot to diabetes. But like the forests themselves, the knowledge of these botanical wizards is fast-disappearing due to deforestation and profound cultural transformation among younger generations. The combined loss of this knowledge and these forests irreplaceably impoverishes the world of cultural and biological diversity. Dr. Mark Plotkin, President of the non-profit Amazon conservation Team, is working to stop this fate by partnering with indigenous people to conserve biodiversity, health, and culture in South American rainforests. Plotkin, a renowned ethnobotanist and accomplished author (Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice, Medicine Quest) who was named one of Time Magazine's environmental "Hero for the Planet," has spent parts of the past 25 years living and working with shamans in Latin America. Through his experiences, Plotkin has concluded that conservation and the well-being of indigenous people are intrinsically linked -- in forests inhabited by indigenous populations, you can't have one without the other. Plotkin believes that existing conservation initiatives would be better-served by having more integration between indigenous populations and other forest preservation efforts.
