Gates Funds Malaria Research Drug
December 13, 2004 12:16 PM EST
SAN FRANCISCO - Combating malaria has been one of the primary goals of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and its latest gift of $42.6 million will fund a nonprofit drug company's high-tech take on an ancient Chinese remedy.

Working with a biotechnology company, the San Francisco-based Institute for OneWorld Health will try to turn the genetic engineering efforts of Jay Keasling of the University of California, Berkley into an inexpensive and effective drug to fight malaria in the third world. An announcement was expected Monday.

Keasling is developing a new way to manufacture artemisinin, which is made from finely ground wormwood plants. Chinese first extracted artemisinin from the sweet wormwood for medicinal use more than 2,000 years ago. Since then it has been applied to a variety of ailments, but the method is expensive, time consuming and limited by access to wormwood.

"The plant can't supply a whole continent," said Victoria Hale, OneWorld's chief executive.

Keasling and his colleagues are trying to eliminate the need for the plant by splicing its chemical-producing genes and yeast genes into E. coli, ultimately coaxing artemisinin from this creation.

"I hope that UC Berkeley's participation will serve as a model for other academic institutions to apply their scientific knowledge and resources to critical global health problems," said Dr. Regina Rabinovich, director of infectious diseases at the Gates Foundation.

The foundation has donated nearly $300 million in malaria-related grants. The disease kills over a million people each year, most of them young children in Africa and Asia.

Artemesinin is not patentable; It is a plant. If if it is no longer a plant, it will be and will be another moneymaker for someone. I hope I am seeing it wrong.

This was the same with RIAMET - a short course for Babesia; 24 pills taken over 60 hours, made of artemesinin and an added antibiotic, made it a drug by prescription only and is still not available in this country. Two courses some weeks apart work quite well for Babesia, if we could get our hands on it.

In the meantime we spend thousands on Mepron, on and on. I think we are being had again. I hope someone sees it in a different light.

Is this a specific brand of supplement or are you using Ayurveda simply in reference to supplements used following Ayurveda?

I looked Ayurveda up on the internet and this is what I found. "In Sanskrit, Ayu means "Life" and Veda means "knowledge or science." Ayurveda can be interpreted as the Science of Life. This "Science of Life" is a holistic healing system using diet, herbs, aromatherapy, color therapy, exercise (Yoga), meditation and massage to form a customized blueprint of health for each individual"

Thanks,

Angie

My husband and I use quite a few wonderful Ayurvedics.

Mucuna is one of them. I have posted about it. I think so far our doctor has put practically every Lyme patient on it for the good results it brings. (nerve tonic, and it also works like drugs to help alleviate Parkinsons symptoms.

Many take Amla, the Indian Gooseberry. Read up on it.

Pipli if taken with abx, meds and herbs will multiply the effectiveness several-fold as it will aid in absorption of foods. There are many good ones. A lot of the foods and medicines are not absorbed and therefore do not do what they should do.

We have to be selective and choose clean products as best we can. With the environment that we have created for ourselves, it is not easy, but very much worth the effort.

Please read this article below. I heard the story on NPR yesterday. Certain brands of Ayurveda products seem to be dangerous. The research began because a doctor had a patient with brain damage from lead poisoning that they eventually linked to the Ayurveda medicine he took.

There may be a way to find out what brands to stay away from.

December 14, 2004

Heavy Metals Found in Indian Herbs
TUESDAY, Dec. 14 (HealthDayNews) -- One in five herbal products tied to an ancient Indian form of alternative medicine could contain potentially toxic levels of heavy metals such as lead, mercury and arsenic, a new survey finds.

Although the health hazards posed by these products vary depending on the level of metal and the characteristics of the person taking it, they are nevertheless real, say the authors of the study, which appears in the Dec. 15 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"Users of certain Ayurvedic medicines that are manufactured in India and Pakistan may be at risk for heavy metal toxicity," said study author Dr. Robert B. Saper, director of integrative medicine at Boston University School of Medicine. Saper did the study while at Harvard Medical School.

Ayurveda, which originated in India about 2,000 years ago, combines diet and spirit to heal disease, and includes the use of herbal remedies. About 80 percent of India's population uses Ayurvedic products, and it is becoming increasingly popular in the United States, with one analysis estimating that 750,000 adults had consulted an Ayurvedic practitioner.

Ayurvedic products are among dietary supplements that have come under recent criticism. The products are regulated under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA), which many people believe to be too lax.

The impetus for the current study came from a patient at who was admitted not too long ago to a Boston hospital with intractable seizures. Tests showed his blood lead level to be 89 (the normal level for adults is less than 2). Interviews with the family revealed that the man, an Indian-born professional in his 50s, had been taking Guggulu, an Ayurvedic arthritis medicine, for the past six years. The product was then analyzed and found to have very high levels of lead, mercury and arsenic.

Saper then scoured the medical literature and found, since 1978, more than 50 published accounts of heavy metal poisoning in infants, children and adults associated with Ayurvedic medicine. The cases occurred in various countries and included the death of an infant, congenital paralysis, deafness and mental retardation.

This led Saper to conduct his own study. Along with his colleagues, he identified every store within a 20-mile radius of Boston City Hall that sold Ayurvedic herbal medicine products made in South Asia. Between April and October 2003, they visited each of these stores and purchased all that were intended for oral consumption. In all, 70 different products were purchased and then tested at the New England Environmental Protection Agency lab.

Overall, 14 of the 70 products contained lead, mercury or arsenic, or more than one. Thirteen products contained lead, six contained mercury, and six contained arsenic. "Moreover, half of the products that contained heavy metals had labels recommending their use for infants and children," Saper added.

Twenty-four of the 30 stores visited sold at least one Ayurvedic product containing a heavy metal.

It's not clear if these results can be generalized to all Ayurvedic products for sale in the United States. "It's very possibly that most of these products are from ethnic Indian grocery stores and not found in mass distribution," said Mark Blumenthal, founder and executive director of the American Botanical Council.

It's also not clear why the heavy metals have found their way into these products, although two possibilities include accidental contamination during the manufacturing process or intentional inclusion.

The authors of the study called for mandatory testing of all such products. "This study points to the need for Congress to pass regulations that make heavy metal testing mandatory for all dietary supplements, including Ayurvedic products," Saper said.

Blumenthal noted the DSHEA already has provisions for new good manufacturing practices (GMPs) for dietary supplements. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is expected to publish the final rules soon.

"The contamination issue is a result of poor manufacturing practices, most of which can be dealt with when new FDA GMPs are finally published and enforced," Blumenthal said. "They'll take one, two or three years to go into effect, based on whether it is a small, medium or large firm."