Natural Pharmacy, January 2000

ETHNOPHARMACY:
HISTORY MAY HOLD THE KEY TO THE FUTURE OF THE MODERN NATURAL PHARMACY
Daniel T. Wagner, R. Ph., M.B.A.

In recent years, the pharmacy profession has become as diverse and varied as the profession of medicine. Everyone is familiar with the traditional community retail pharmacist, hospital pharmacist, nuclear pharmacist, academic pharmacist, and industry pharmacist. Now with the advent of the entry-level doctorate of pharmacy degree, pharmacists are also specializing in geriatrics, oncology, nutrition, diabetes management, and many other fields.

The latter group includes the ethnopharmacists, a group of adventurous pharmacists seeking to understand the rudimentary beginnings of their profession better. They long to study the natural ways in which simple herbs, roots, bark, and plants have come to be considered medicinal, as well as how these crude vegetable drugs set the stage for today's modern pharmaceutical phenomena. They want to look beyond the dictionary definition of "pharmacist" as one who prepares and dispenses drugs and medicines and expand it to include knowledge of where medicines come from, how they became known, and how they can be effectively prepared and taken in a more natural, noninvasive manner.

Explaining Ethnopharmacy

I coined the word "ethnopharmacist" to describe a particular trendsetter-the inquisitive adventurer who respects all things natural, firmly believes that all cures to man's diseases and afflictions are found in nature, and recognizes a more holistic approach to healing.

The main characteristic of the ethnopharmacist, however, is his or her desire to seek the wisdom of the many indigenous, traditional healers who have passed down their healing gifts from generation to generation -- the many shamans, midwives, grannyhealers, bushmasters, curanderos, bruhas, or"native doctors" who, in spite of the Western world's state-of-the-art medical technology, still have a lot to teach about healthcare. These healers have the knowledge of native plants' medicinal properties, something that the Western world wants.

In seeking therapeutic herbal medicines, researchers are increasingly examining how indigenous peoples utilize botanicals. Perhaps the first indication that the advent of the ethnopharmacist is near is the incredible increase in the interest in botanical medicines.

The herbal movement is taking the country by storm, and the entire Western medical community, particularly the hospitals and medical associations, are rethinking their dismissive stances on alternative and complementary medicine. Their question is no longer, "Is this legitimate medicine or quackery?" but "How can we best integrate this medicine into conventional, allopathic practice?" In fact, more and more evidence supporting botanical remedies is coming out of Europe. For example, rigorous clinical trials and pharmaceutical-grade science help make up the medicinal herb regulatory system in Germany, where herbal medicines must meet the same criteria as over-the-counter drugs and more than 300 herbs are carefully regulated by government agencies.
Why has the United States not adopted a medicinal herb regulatory system comparable with Germany's arrangement? There are probably many reasons, including apathy among medical doctors, pressure from pharmaceutical manufacturers, and inherent bias toward European medical research. However, the most likely reason is that government agencies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has shrugged off such proposals and pleaded poverty. Perhaps natural-minded pharmacists such as the ethnopharmacists will lead the way in altering the present atmosphere of doubt and noncooperation and show the relevance of natural medicine for the overall health of the public.

Travel and Learn

The thrill and excitement of actually being in the vanishing rainforests that many of us have only seen in movies can be a reality today, and it is almost critical to do so to learn more about ethnopharmacy.

In the past 4 or 5 years, pharmacists have begun to embark on such rainforest expeditions to learn about the "roots" of their profession. The most successful program has been the Pharmacy from the Rainforest continuing education (CE) series of natural medicine-related expeditions for pharmacists, which first ventured to the Peruvian Amazon in 1994 and have held subsequent expeditions to Belize, Costa Rica, and Kenya.

This series-a joint venture of the American Botanical Council (ABC), Texas Pharmacy Foundation JPF), and International Expeditions, Inc (IE)-affords naturally minded pharmacists opportunities to meet and work with indigenous healers as well as learn to identify hundreds of plant species, many of which have medicinal uses.

The Pharmacy from the Rainforest expeditions also feature some of the leading naturalist guides and ethnobotanists in the country directing the rainforest workshops and field studies-Jim Duke, Ph.D.; Mark Plotkin, Ph.D.; Varro E. Tyler, Ph.D., Sc.D.; Rosita Arvigo, D.N.; and Mark Blumenthal, executive director of ABC.

The Rainforest Classroom

While pharmacists can take the Pharmacy from the Rainforest ethnopharmacy expeditions, the Student Rainforest Fund (SRF) leads pharmacy students and other future healthcare professionals to the rainforest.

SRF is a nonprofit, educational organization founded by myself and Norbert Pilewski, R.Ph., Ph.D., associate professor of pharmacognosy at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based Duquesne University, in 1996. It provides funding for pharmacy, premed, and other health professional college students to travel to the rainforests of Belize to expose them to natural products and therapies as well as advanced ethnobotany studies.

The main purpose of SRF's expeditions is to expose tomorrow's pharmacists and physicians to a more holistic approach to healthcare by studying plant medicines, interacting with the indigenous healers, and learning how to compound jungle remedies. The students also learn about Mayan healing from Rosita Arvigo, D.N., who has additionally taken part in the Pharmacy from the Rainforest tours.

Pharmacist Plant Protectors

One of the most important and most ethical reasons that naturally minded pharmacists and pharmacy students should go to the rainforest is to somehow help the long-term survival of plant species that may or may not be medicinal, although wise shamans would say that all plants have a purpose and medicinal use.

Pharmacists and pharmacy students can aid in ensuring that the future producers and consumers of herbal products and medicinal plants collected from the wild harvest these botanicals sustainably and, in some cases, cultivate them in order to proliferate the herbal market and assure the future researchability of medicinal plants before they disappear. Today in the United States, for example, 29% of the 16,000 known endemic plants are at risk for extinction.

Collecting plant samples in the wild involves the science of posology-the methodology for identifying, collecting, and labeling herbarium samples correctly so that they can be shipped to research facilities and studied for their medicinal properties.

Both SRF and ABC have taken part in the field collection of medicinal plants for export to leading institutions doing natural medicine research.

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) is the leading research facility in the United States doing work on modern medicines from natural sources. Eight years ago, for example, the NCI and New York Botanical Garden were instrumental in arranging botanical collection and research that led to the development of Taxol, an anticancer drug created from the bark of the Pacific yew tree.

Some extremely effective treatments in modern medicine were derived from natural sources from this type of collecting and studying herbs and medicinal plants. For example, two substances isolated from the Madagascar periwinkle, Vincristine sulfate and Vinblastine sulfate, are used to combat several afflictions, including childhood leukemia and Hodgkin's disease.

There is always that 1 in 10,000,000 chance that the plant or tuber recently discovered or made known by an indigenous healer may be the cure for cancer, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), or another deadly disease. [To Be Continued]

Daniel T Wagner, R.Ph., M.B.A., is the owner of Nutri-Farmacy in western Pennsylvania and president and cofounder of the Student Rainforest Fund.
Student Rainforest Fund
Daniel T. Wagner, R.Ph., M.B.A.
Nutri-Farmacy
2506 Wildwood Road, Wildwood, PA 15091

American Botanical Council (ABC)
P.0. Box 144345
Austin, TX 78714-4345
(512) 926-4900

Texas Pharmacy Foundation (TPF)
RO. Box 14709M
Austin, TX 78761-4709
(512) 836-8350



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