Prime Time Replay:
Mark Blumenthal
on Herbal Medicine
MsgId: *breakthrough(2)
Date: Wed Nov 6 21:01:04 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 152.163.231.135
Welcome to this week's interview on Breakthrough Medicine. Our guest this time is Mark Blumenthal, founder and executive director of the American botanical Council, the leading non-profit research and education organization on herbal medicine.
MsgId: *breakthrough(5)
Date: Wed Nov 6 21:11:25 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.181.211
Mark: I'm also editor of Herbalgram, a quarterly journal/magazine that is peer reviewed by leading medicinal plant experts, but is published in four-color and sold in book stores. We have a world-wide readership of 50,000 plus. ABC is involved with educating the general public, media, health professionals, etc, regarding the appropriate role for herbs and phytomedicines in modern health care.
MsgId: *breakthrough(7)
Date: Wed Nov 6 21:14:35 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.181.211
Mark, could we talk about phytomedicines? As I understand it, 25% of prescription drugs are derived from plants. What is more beneficial--the extract or the drug?
MsgId: *breakthrough(8)
Date: Wed Nov 6 21:16:29 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.181.211
Mark: The answer is both. It's not a question of either/or. There is obviously an important role for conventional pharmaceutical drugs that are plant derived, e.g. atropine from belladonna leaves, the hypotensive reserpine from Indian snake root, the tubo curarine, a pre-surgical muscle relaxant from the vine that produces South American arrow tip poisons. The gout drug colchicine from the ancient Mediterranean autumn crocus, and many more. Most of the plants just mentioned are thoroughly to highly toxic.A good example is digitalis, a heart drug, from foxglove leaf--very poisonous. These drugs can be life saving when used by physicians in appropriate dosages.However, herbal medicine is usually based on plants that are not toxic. Herbal medicines are defined as whole plants or plant parts, either in a tea form, where they are extracted in water, or when the plant is ground up and made into tablets or capsules, or when it is extracted in water and alcohol, e.g., tincture. The primary difference in all of these forms compared to conventional drugs is that the herbal products contain numerous naturally occuring chemical compounds that can act synergystically and therefore more gently than single, isolated, concentrated plant derived drugs.
MsgId: *breakthrough(13)
Date: Wed Nov 6 21:23:21 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.181.211
Moderator: If the basis for conventional medicines is so similar to herbal medicines, why does mainstream medicine have so much trouble with the herbal medicine movement?
MsgId: *breakthrough(14)
Date: Wed Nov 6 21:25:05 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.181.211
Mark: It's basically a question of education, regulation and economics. First, M.D.'s are no longer trained in the appropriate uses of herbal medicines in medical school, not one medical institution in the U.S. offers courses in medical botany or phytomedicines. Only 12 out of 75 schools of pharmacy continue to offer courses in pharmacognosy, the study of drugs of natural origin. Therefore a whole generation or two of physicians and a generation of pharmacists have graduated with no training and knowledge about the appropriate uses of simple, gentle herbal remedies.
MsgId: *breakthrough(16)
Date: Wed Nov 6 21:27:19 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.181.211
Moderator: Is your group contacted by people who get frustrated with the medical profession?
MsgId: *breakthrough(17)
Date: Wed Nov 6 21:28:24 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.181.211
Mark: Routinely. We also get contacted by physicians, pharmacists and nurses who want authoritative and scientific information on the safety and benefit of these products. For example, just the day before yesterday I was appointed as a clinical associate professor of medicinal chemistry at the University of Texas college of Pharmacy, in Austin. And I will be teaching a course on herbs and phytomedicine at the pharmacy school, starting next summer.It's not just about education. The regulatory system at the FDA requires that all new drugs go through a New Drug Application (NDA) prior to receiving market approval. This process takes 8-12 years and can cost up to $300-500 million dollars. No pharmaceutical company or herb company can afford to invest this huge sum of money to prove the activity of an herb to FDA's satisfaction without the ability to obtain exclusive marketing rights for the herb. And herbs are not patentable. So, it's as if there is an unintentional co-conspiracy between the patent laws on the one hand, and the regulatory process on the other. The result is that no one can make money on herbal medicine by going through the NDA process. So the pharmaceutical companies literally blow them off. Except for cases in which they might be able to find a specific chemical in a traditional herbal medicine that the pharmaceutical company can somehow chemically modify to obtain a patent and therefore justify the huge expense of an NDA.
This regulatory and economic barrier feeds back into the medical education system because obviously physicians are taught to use those medicinal agents that are being researched by pharmaceutical companies and approved by the FDA. Herbs have slipped through the cracks, into a regulatory twilight zone, for the past sixty years.
It's important to remember that the word 'drug' come from a 14th century Dutch word, meaning 'to dry' because plants were dried for medicinal use. 'Drought' has the same origin. The whole concept behind the word 'drug' is herbal, or botanical, in origin!
MsgId: *breakthrough(24)
Date: Wed Nov 6 21:44:02 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.181.211
Moderator: Other countries don't have this schism between herbal medicine and conventional medicine. What is responsible for the easier time physicians have issuing prescriptions for herbs outside of the U.S.?
MsgId: *breakthrough(25)
Date: Wed Nov 6 21:45:39 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.181.211
Mark: First, in most other countries people have always used herbs as part of their culture. For example, France and Germany still approve the use of herbs as drugs. In France, 205 herbs are approved for their traditional use as drugs for 35 different minor conditions or illnesses. In Germany, the Federal health agency established the commission E in 1978, an interdisciplinary panel of medical and pharmacy experts which has reviewed over 300 herbs and herb combinations sold in German pharmacies for their safety and efficacy as drugs. Commission E has reviewed the bibliographic literature on these herbs and has approved about 200 of them as nonprescription medicines. In Germany, herbs are sold in pharmacies and are recommended by both M.D.s and pharmacists. All German M.D.s graduating from Med school since '93 must pass a portion of their board exams in phytotherapy as a precondition for getting their medical license.
MsgId: *breakthrough(28)
Date: Wed Nov 6 21:51:34 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.181.211
Moderator: Some people who want to use herbs are concerned that once they leave the conventional medicine arena, they are going into uncharted waters. How is your group helping to rectify that perception?
MsgId: *breakthrough(29)
Date: Wed Nov 6 21:53:32 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.181.211
Mark: The issue of proper identity and quality of herbal products is a major concern, particularly for health professionals. The herb industry has made great strides in the past few years in the area of quality control and manufacturing processes. The new dietary supplement health and education act of 1994 requires that the herb industry increase its quality control measures for herbs sold as dietary supplements.ABC has been testing commercial ginseng products sold in North America for the past three years. Next spring or summer we intend to publish the results of our analysis of over 400 ginseng products in our journal, Herbalgram, to inform the public as to which brand they can trust and which brands, if any, are either adulterated or misbranded.
MsgId: *breakthrough(31)
Date: Wed Nov 6 21:56:31 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.181.211
Moderator: What kind of quality have you found in the industry up to this point?
MsgId: *breakthrough(32)
Date: Wed Nov 6 21:58:50 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.181.211
Mark: Obviously I cannot comment on specific brands, nor reveal the results of our program, as some products are still being retested. By the way, they are being tested in a blind fashion, so that two university laboratories do not know what brands they are testing, to insure fairness and remove potential bias. However, I can say, with considerable assurance, that there are many brands of high quality ginseng being sold in the U.S. market as teas, tablets, capsules and liquid extracts.
MsgId: *breakthrough(33)
Date: Wed Nov 6 22:00:04 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.181.211
Moderator: Are there new herbal products being made available now?
MsgId: *breakthrough(35)
Date: Wed Nov 6 22:02:33 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.181.211
Mark: Yes, many 'new' products that are just beginning to enjoy newfound popularity in the U.S. marketplace have been used in traditional societies for many years. One example is kava, the root of a plant in the black pepper family, which is naturally found in Polynesia, in the South Pacific. The word pacific is interesting here, because drinking a beverage made from kava actually has a mild pacifying action and is approved by the German commission E as a safe and effective nonprescription remedy for anxiety and nervous restlessness.
MsgId: *breakthrough(36)
Date: Wed Nov 6 22:04:09 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.181.211
Moderator: Mark, if you could shape the current medical landscape for the optimum receptivity of herbs, what would you propose?
MsgId: *breakthrough(37)
Date: Wed Nov 6 22:06:26 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.181.211
Mark: That all physicians, pharmacists and nurses be required to study at least one semester in herbs and phytomedicines so that the medical culture can begin to catch up with the popular culture. It is consumer interest and use of these herbs that is creating the explosion of herbs in the U.s.; its not coming from the medical profession itself, its coming from the bottom up, instead of the top down.Also, we need a better system of regulation for herbs so that they can be marketed not only as only dietary supplements which allows only very limited statements about their health benefits, but that they be also allowed to be marketed with therapeutic claims that are consistent with their historical, traditional use -- much of which has been confirmed by modern scientific research. We need an intelligent, rational system to review these herbs by experts who understand them.
MsgId: *breakthrough(39)
Date: Wed Nov 6 22:10:14 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.181.211
Moderator: Mark, our time is up. Thank you for a stimulating and informative insight into the progress of herbal medicine into conventional medicine.
MsgId: *breakthrough(41)
Date: Wed Nov 6 22:13:07 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.181.211
Mark: Grateful to be able to visit with Omni online, and to find out more about our herbs, visit the ABC website at www.herbalgram.org, or to get a 32 page herbal education catalogue, for only $2.50, call 1-800-373-7105, and you can also call the number to subscribe to Herbalgram. Or E-mail orders to custserv@herbalgram.org.
MsgId: *breakthrough(42)
Date: Wed Nov 6 22:15:10 EST 1996
From: moderator At: 206.80.181.211
Moderator: Thank you again, Mark, and goodnight from Breakthrough Medicine.
Home || Prime Time || Live Science || Machine Dreams || Project Open Book || SF-Fantasy-Horror
Continuum || Antimatter || Mind-Brain Lab || Interactive IQ || Gallery || OMNI ToonsQuestions, comments and suggestions can be mailed to the webmaster.
Copyright (C) 1997 by Omni Publications International, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.