File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1998/marxism-international.9801, message 425


Date: Wed, 28 Jan 98 5:54:22 EST
From: boddhisatva <kbevans-AT-panix.com>
Subject: Re: M-I: Re: Ecology and the American Indian







		C. Sid,



	Scientific American has nice little article this month about the
capitalist snow-job that is the "herbal medicine" trend.  Have you ever
heard the term "snake oil?".  In Germany, where verdant liberals delight
that doctors prescribe St. John's wort for depression instead of Prozac,
and somehow consider it a victory for the proletariat.  They ignore the
fact that much of the data that the German Federal Health Authority's
Commission E publishes in support of herbal remedies is proprietary studies
by manufacturers and historical studies without controls.  Greens also
ignore that natural medicines are gather from nature by such methods as
shooting rhinos, poisoning seahorses with cyanide and raking the
underbrush clear in search of wild ginseng.  Of course there are
beneficial herbs and natural substances.  Many of them derive from the
defenses plants create *against* being eaten (capsicum - the active
ingredient in capsaicin arthritis rub, for one, digitalis for another).
But at least Merck poisons a few mice with their brews and sends out the
results to the scientific community and the FDA before they sell the
stuff.  In America, recent changes in the law mean that I could go around
selling hemlock and no one could stop me until someone died from it.  You
have to prove, not potential harm, but immediate danger before you can
remove a "natural' product from the shelf.  



	As for my comments on cannibalism, I was simply pointing out that
there is a difference between learning from a culture and lionizing it. 






	peace





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