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12. Opinion: Defending Complimentary Alternative Medicine against Corporate Science.

One rarely gets such a display from drug company employee, embodying Western Corporate Science’s belittling arrogance towards Aromatherapy and Complimentary Medicine in general, as is reported in the notes of a recent Society of Cosmetic Scientists lecture concerning Botanicals & Cosmetics given recently at the London College of Fashion in London¹. It is typical of a sneering attitude, which reveals an ignorance of the alternative practices themselves, as well as highlighting many basic misconceptions.

The Taxol Story.

Colin Sanders (Head of Product Formulation at Medex Scientific) made an unfortunate start to his lecture by choosing to talk about Taxol, a drug used as a treatment for cancer “derived from a Californian Yew tree species”. He apparently failed to mention that there is an ethical side to the exploitation of this particular botanical drug. The real story is that taxol from a Pacific yew species Taxus brevifolia Nutt was discovered in 1964 to be active against cultured murine leukaemia cells via a screening programme of plant actives conducted by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in the US. To cut a long story short² after trials the NCI eventually decided to treat 12,000 patients per year with taxol but this would have resulted in the disappearance of the Pacific Yew in the US (and in the disappearance of a creature called the spotted wol that was dependent on this tree!) and its exploitation was therefore successfully opposed by environmentalists. The attention of the drug barons therefore turned to another taxol (and a taxol-analogue 10-deacetylbaccatin III) bearing species Taxus baccata subsp. wallichiana growing in the Kumaon & other parts of the Himalaya, which was already under depletion and facing extinction in some areas. Indiscriminate harvesting of bark and needles for its taxol content has further threatened the species (Kumar et al. 1997) in spite of regeneration programmes. As with the history of Sandalwood³ and Agarwood exploitation, the slow growth of the trees in these planting programmes probably means that these measures would ultimately have been ineffective strategies to preserve the species in the long-term.

However, very luckily for the Himalayan ecology, in was discovered that Taxus baccata also grew in the UK and US, and that English yew contained more 10-deacetylbaccatin III than the Himalayan tree, and in contrast could be harvested without apparent environmental consequences. By 1991, 20 million yew trees were also under plantation in Ohio and Michegan for the extraction of 10-deacetylbaccatin III from the needles. Bristol-Myers Squibb who were leaders in this taxol producing technology, eventually owning a semi-synthetic process to produce taxol, thereby obviating the need for yew bark, but they pulled out of taxol manufacture in 1993, as taxol derivatives began to be produced by other manufacturers. And so luckily, the development of cheaper chemical synthesis routes to taxol effectively saved the species.

Of Profits and Biopiracy

Sanders (as reported by Roberts) goes on to say that the idea that herbal remedies as “alternative” products are ignored by “conventional” medicine is not true, and that natural products have been the mainstay of the pharmaceutical industry. It is true that pharmaceutical companies have exploited the endemic knowledge of many ethnic peoples over the years to produce profitable pharmaceutical products amid many accusations of biopiracy. In Feb 2004 the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies advised that patent officials need access to indigenous knowledge when weighing up the merits of prospective patents to decide if the application is novel or based on traditional practices. This might theoretically prevent the
repetition of the situation were the W. Grace Company was given the patenting rights to the Neem Tree - a decision subsequently and quite rightly taken away in the international courts. But in reality, for every victory there are thousands of losses - the resources are just not there to fight off thes ponging greed of certain transnational concerns employed in these acts.

The US position of extensive freedom to patent ahead of commercial exploitation, by allowing the patenting of life forms, and the fear of this policy also being adopted in Europe via the passing of certain European Directives, has caused a certain degree of panic across continents, such as India and Indonesia. Some areas such as Chiapias in S. Mexico have actually banned transnational companies from entering the country to mount bioprospecting expeditions and thereby robbing the peoples of the potential of their indigenous plants by patenting their pharmaceutical properties. Our EMP's, no doubt persuaded by the lobbying from multi-nationals, seem to have a fear of losing out on future Agri-business to countries such as Japanese and the US, although the voters they represent, might have made it quite plain that they have little appetite for biotechnology in its various forms e.g. with respect to bio-pharmaceuticals (unnatural chemicals engineered from plants) and GM products. Nevertheless the party pressure to vote in favour of these measures is there. We are already seeing moves in many developing countries to embrace this sort of technology, as Western multinationals investigate and patent a variety of indigenous plants and seeds, sometimes attempting to exploit their latent properties in novel ways (but they are still patenting the plant!). Worse still, because of the crisis of biodiversity, as in some instances seed banks of rare and threatened species are now totally in the hands of private industry. No doubt if the financial rewards are not evident for these reserved life forms, the private owners will eventually unplug the freezers to save building space and maintenance costs.

I am reminded that the annual Captain Hook Award Prize for Biopiracy was won in 2002 by the U.S. University of Toledo in Ohio State for a patent on Ethiopia's endod plant. This, remember, is only 2 years on from the Conference of Biodiversity, where 182 countries signed an agreement to stop drug and perfume countries plundering the natural resources of countries without paying anything back to the peoples.

Blind prejudice or what? Some Sanders lecture quotes:

1. Acupuncture.

Sanders is reported by Roberts as saying about acupuncture “…. it may have some clinical relevance, but is based on ancient philosophy that is clearly nonsense”. No actual reasoning is reported in the article to explain why a complete system of (Chinese) medicine developed over thousands of years, and an integral part of a health system looking after tens of millions of people can be loftily dismissed in this manner.

2. Reflexology.

“…appears to be free from any baggage of associated ideas and if it proves beneficial then why not?” (The condescending attitude here is breath taking, but Sanders does not appear to comprehend the principles behind the therapy if he thinks there are no associated ideas).

3. Homeopathy.

“…this should be demonstrable in a clinical trial….it is not”. In fact all the investigations that I have seen into homeopathy have had serious design faults and have lacked sufficient scientific rigour to be able to safely come to this conclusion. I don’t presume to have seen all such studies, but I would be interested to see any which have truly addressed these shortcomings.

4. Aromatherapy.

“Aromatherapy is in vogue and attracts outrageous claims”…and…. “Colin (Sanders) found it hard to equate a cancer cure with sniffing things”. In fact, no Professional Aromatherapy Organisation would allow its registered (aromatherapist) members to make any claim about curing cancer, although many clinical studies have been devoted to making the lives of cancer patients subsequently more comfortable through complimentary therapy. Sanders probably misunderstands that the efficacy of a full aromatherapy treatment regime (an “intervention”) cannot be realistically reproduced and evaluated by a few untrained technicians in lab coats on a cold laboratory bench. If however Sanders would like to read about a well designed and conducted trials in massage and aromatherapy in a clinical setting with statistically proven beneficial outcomes for institutionalised subjects, then perhaps he would like to refer to studies conducted by Field et al. (1992) and Wilkinson (1995) as listed in the references below.

Sanders also remarks that “there is some evidence of measured effects of essential oils (e.g. a soporific effect of lavender oil on infant mice)”. Perhaps here Sanders is confusing aromatherapy with aromachology, but in any case the effects of lavender and linalol isomers has been very well investigated, and is reviewed by Burfield et al. (2003). A wealth of data exists inn the public domain on the physiological and other effects of essential oils, which can be found for example in the Aromatherapy Research Data Base marketed by EORC. And so the statement starting “there is some evidence…” is an understatement of the true position.

5. Bach Flower Remedies.

According to Roberts “Colin dismissed the Bach Flower Remedies as simply daft”. As this is not self-evident to the unprejudiced mind, and since again we are not entitled to an explanation, or reference to a single study proving the lack of efficacy of these products, I take the observation as being essentially worthless. In the reported lecture that follows, Tony Dweck is quoted as saying that these products (amongst others including Aromatherapy and Spa treatments) are areas of concern, being aimed at vulnerable groups. Of course this wouldn’t apply to the cosmetics trade would it - where jars of expensive cream promising rejuvenating properties for the complexion and containing exotic ingredients from rare plant species have definitely not been sold to vulnerable women over the years, concerned about their appearance due to the ravages of time. No, no, of course not!

Fighting Back.

Sanders also says “When you go to the pharmacy for medication you engage with the system and ethics of the healthcare industry”. Sure. You also engage a system which inadvertently has caused large numbers of unfortunate deaths and illnesses for huge numbers of patients via the unwanted side-effects of prescribed drugs, and which, in part at least, is regulated by an unholy marriage between big business and the lawmakers - see for example articles on the corruption of science by Schubert (2004) & Epstein et al. (undated). People choose alternative therapies for minor ailments because they feel they are “in control” of their medication rather than relying on disclosures of side-effects from drug manufacturers via their GP’s, and because for less serious complaints, many believe they have a right to choose traditional medicines rather than synthetic drugs. But the right to choose natural products is in effect becoming more and more threatened as the democratic process is consecutively undermined by influence from the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. This is exemplified for example by the disappearance of products from shop shelves under the guise of adverse safety study findings on natural medicines, many of which are themselves deeply scientifically flawed (as in the recent kava-kava fiasco). In many cases biological species causing diseases (mosquitoes, pathogenic micro-organisms etc.) cannot develop a resistance to an efficacious herbal extract whereas as they can to a single drug. But this is a big subject that cannot be addressed in a few lines – however it would have introduced some degree of balance into what is basically a pro-industry lecture, if only some of these issues had at least been mentioned.

Alternative medicine has many critics – but needs defending against unfair statements such as those above.

References.

1. Roberts M. (2004) S.C.S. Report Southern Educational Event 2004 “When Does Addition of a Botanical Mean that a Cosmetic is not a Cosmetic” London College of Fashion London W1 8^th July 2004 SCS Newsletter Aug/Sept 2004 pp 6-8.

2. Fully reported in Pandey G. (2000) Medicinal Plants of the Himalaya Vol 2 Sri Satguru Publicns. New Delhi, India pp 317-330.

3. - See the Cropwatch series on http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~nodice/

4. Burfield T. et al. (2003) “Substituting for Rosewood Oil Aniba rosaeodora var. amazonica Ducke – a look at other high linalol containing oils.” Aromatherapy Today Vol 26, June 2003 pp30-37.

5. Epstein et al. (undated) see http://www.chem-tox.com/letters/banned.htm

6. Field T. et al.(1992) “Massage reduces anxiety in child and adolescent psychiatric patients” J. Am. Acad. Child Adolesc. Psychol. 31(1), 125-131.

7. Kumar S. et al. (1997) Indian Medicinal Plants facing Genetic Errosion pub. CIMAP, Lucknow, India pp 196-200.

8. Schubert, David San Diego Union-Tribune 09-07-04

9. Wilkinson S. (1995) “Aromatherapy & Massage in Palliative Care” Int. J. Palliative Nurs. 1(1), 21-30.

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