Ethnobotanist vs. Big Pharma?

What is an ethnobotanist? Chris Kilham is one, and here are two excerpts from his website "medicinehunter.com."

"Chris travels the world in search of traditional, plant-based medicines, and works with shamans, healers, growers, harvesters, scientists, trade officials and other plant medicine experts in dozens of countries."

“Part David Attenborough, part Indiana Jones, Mr. Kilham, an ethnobotanist from Massachusetts… scoured remote jungles and highlands for three decades for plants, oils and extracts that can heal.” - The New York Times



I had a chance to hear him on a program recently. Given that his discoveries could potentially impact profits at big pharma companies, they are not big fans of his work. They seek to create FUD abut what he does. I guess it is mutual. He too is not a big fan of big pharma.

When the interviewer asked him about safety of his drugs, he had the following to say:
"300,000 people in the US die every year from prescriptions drugs, whereas during a typical year, one or two people may die from herbs." Of course, the number of people of taking herbs is much lower, and so the percent of people dying from herbs may be higher, I still can't argue with the 300K number.

Regarding patents, his view was that it is not the research cost of drugs that companies are seeking to recover, it is the sales and marketing cost. He says that pharma companies spend twice as much on sales and advertising as they do on research.

He summarized his talk by saying "We have become so used to factories that we are willing to give up millenia of tradition for some factory made products."

How right!