The deadly dozen dubiously-salubrious denizens of the DA (Drug Administration)

[Guest guest]

The deadly dozen dubiously-salubrious denizens of the DA

JoAnn Guest

Oct 17, 2005 13:07 PDT

 

The deadly dozen dubiously-salubrious denizens of the DA (Drug

Administration)

 

Jim Duke

 

 

 

When the FDA outlawed supplements of tryptophan (essential to life),

which probably occurs in all living and recently dead animals and

plants, I interpreted that as suggesting that tryptophan must be a

pretty promising nutritional supplement.

 

Though environmental, health, and safety debates always have two

sides,

I am convinced that tryptophan was not the culprit, rather a

" technologically introduced " contaminant (gmo), which killed more

than

30 people.

 

Tryptophan, though still on the FDA hit list and still illegal as a

supplement, occurs in every plant and animal you consume. (Seed of

evening primrose, busted at least 4 times by the FDA, is the best

source

of tryptophan in my database.)

 

There's one strange conflicting connection; some US scientists, who

will

make more money if tryptophan and melatonin are moved from OTC to

prescription-only availability, may have influenced the FDA

campaigns

against melatonin and/or evening primrose.

 

One super scientist with financial ties to these chemicals or

pharmaceuticals that share the same activities, has shown that

dietary

tryptophan contributes to cerebral serotonin, in that sense

satisfying

some of the same circuitry satisfied by Prozac.

 

So Prozac is still legal, selling more than a billion dollars a

year,

while supplementary tryptophan is illegal, and evening primrose, the

best natural source of tryptophan has been busted.

 

I have told herbal friends not to despair, that FDA disapproval of

an

herb or supplement often stimulates sales, so popular and credible

is

the belief that the FDA is in the pockets of the pharmaceutical

propagandists.

 

I suspect that many real scientists in the FDA, if they weighed the

evidence, would rather their daughters

took angelica than calcium blockers, celeryseed than allopurinol,

evening primrose than Prozac, feverfew than sumatriptan, ma huang

than

amphetamine, rosemary than cognex, St. John's-wort than Prozac, non-

gmo

soybean or other tastier estrogenic legumes than tamoxiphen.

 

 

 

Yes, the FDA has banned tryptophan, biotechnologically contaminated

versions of which killed more than 30 people and caused perhaps

hundreds

of cases of EMS.

But OTC and prescription pharmaceuticals, approved by the FDA, take

thousands of lives each year.

Now for an honest confession from an herbalist. Herbally-

derived " drugs "

of abuse probably kill more than a million Americans each year. And

starting in 1995/6, Dr. Kessler, FDA Commissioner, finally took on

the

real herbal enemy, an Amerindian herb known as tobacco, Nicotiana.

 

Though Amerindians historically used the herb ceremonially without

becoming addicted, more than a quarter of Americas have smoked, and

most

of them became physiologically addicted, including yours truly. For

more

than two decades I smoked three packs a day, king-sized, unfiltered.

 

Now I've switched from cancer sticks to carrot sticks, hoping that

the

mix of carotenoids, unlike isolated beta-carotene, will prevent the

lung

cancer I invited with all that smoke pouring through my lungs.

 

This is the worst of the killer herbs, killing perhaps half a

million

Americans and more and more unAmericans every year.

 

The next worse killer herbs are those used to make the often-abused

alcohol. (Any sugar producing herb can be used to manufacture

alcohol;

among the most frequent, sugarcane, corn, potato, grapes, barley,

hops,

etc.)

Though the poison ethanol kills many Americans, we don't ban the

corn,

our number two crop, nor the grapes, or potatoes. I frankly don't

know

which is the next worse killer, cocaine (From Erythroxylum spp.),

heroin

(from opium from Papaver somniferum, one of our Biblical herbs), or

marihuana (Cannabis sativa) or its derivatives, hashish, or

medicinal

THC or marinol.

 

I was once accurately quoted as saying I'd rather my kids smoked an

occasional joint than chronically smoked tobacco. But I think that

habitual smoking of equal amounts of marijuana as a substitute for

smoking tobacco would be as bad as or worse than smoking tobacco.

Coca,

marijuana and opium poppy are banned for planting in the US. But all

of

these killers have legitimate uses.

The FDA approves some medicinal uses of alcohol, codeine, cocaine,

marinol, and morphine, e.g., and poppy's paverine is injected into

more

than one penis in the US, additional to its use in other areas. A

few

deaths attributed to jimsonweed and its generic relatives (Datura

spp.)

and ma huang (Ephedra), but solely or almost exclusively when used

recreationally.

 

 

 

If more people are going to " quacks " (alternative practitioners),

even

when they have to pay out of pocket, than are going to allopathic

physicians, more often covered by HMOs or insurance, as seems to be

the

case starting this decade, why is it that there are several orders

of

magnitude more fatalities associated with allopaths than with

quacks?

 

 

 

Table of Fatalities

 

(Rounded no. of fatalities/no. people involved with procedure or

medicine or herb)

 

Other estimates (food poisoning, murder, based on total population

of

250 million.

 

 

 

Mushroom Poisonings 1/100,000 (JAD)

 

Food Poisoning 1/25,000 (CSPI)

 

NSAIDS 1/10,000 (CMR)

 

Murders 1/10,000 (WTOP)

 

Surgery in Hospital 1/10,000 (JAMA)

 

Car Crashes 1/5,000 (JAD)

 

Improper Taking of Medication 1/2,000 (JAD)

 

Angiograms 1/1,000 (JAD)

 

Medicine (even in hospital) 1/1,000 (JAMA)

 

Alcohol 1/500 (JAD)

 

Cigarettes 1/500 (JAD)

 

Medical Mishaps 1/250 (AARP)

 

Iatrogenic hospital infections 1/80 (JAD)

 

Bypass Operations 1/20 (JAD)

 

Herbs 1/1,000,000 (JAD)

 

Supplements 1/1,000,000 (JAD based on tryptophan)

 

 

Calculation of fatality ratios by me(=-JAD):

 

27 died to tryptophan

(assume 27,000,000 nutrient poppers=1 in a million).

 

 

 

Ca 2 herbal fatalities a year; assume conservatively only 2 million

Americans(<1%; real figure could be closer to 25,000,000 {10% of

Americans}) are taking herbs = 1 in a million

 

 

 

Mushroom Poisonings: Assumes twice as many among mushroom users as

among

herbal grazers, and assuming there are 5 times more of the latter.

(JAD)

 

 

 

 

WTOP announced that there were more than 23,000 murders in 1992,

which I

rounded up to 25,000 over the population of 250,000,000

 

 

 

Center for Science in the Public Interest announced that 10,000

people

died of food poisoning last year, 10,000/250,000,000 =1 in 25,000

 

 

 

Assumes car fatalities will run 50,000 (The rate has gone down of

late)

50,000/250,000,000 = 5/25,000 = 1/5,000

 

 

 

Cigarettes 100,000 out of 50,000,000 smokers = 1 in 500

 

 

 

Alcohol* 100,000 out of 50,000,000 drinkers (25,000,000 problem

drinkers) = 1 in 500

 

 

 

Angiograms 1,000-5,000/yr of 1,000,000 = 1 in 200 to 1 in 1,000

 

 

 

NSAIDS 10,000-20,000/yr assume 40% take =1 in 10,000 to 1 in 5,000

 

 

 

Bypass Operations 14,000-28,000 1 in 10 to 1 in 20

 

 

 

AARP newsletter 1992 1 in 250 to medical mistakes

 

 

 

JAMA 1987 1 in 1,000 entering hospital will die of medication.

 

 

 

100,000 patients lost to hospital acquired infections. CMR May 13,

1985

Or 100,000 out of 8,000,000 = 1 in 80

 

 

 

Medical mistakes ca 200,000 per year assuming. 200,000,000

hospitalizations/year = 1 in 1,000 (Harvard's L. L. Leape) (Good

Housekeeping, Oct. 1992, p. 124)

 

 

 

Improper Taking of Medication 125,000 per yr/ assume 250,000,000 = 1

in

2,000 (Approximately 125,000 Americans die each year from failure to

take their medicine properly... Ca 30-50% of the 1.8 billion

prescriptions dispensed annually are taken incorrectly by the

patient.)

 

 

 

My first medicinal plant book that is still in print, the " CRC

Handbook

of Medicinal Herbs " , was submitted to the publisher under the title

of

" Herbs of Dubious Salubrity " .

Why that title? Because the FDA had called me on most of those

herbs,

looking for bad things about them, a few days or weeks before the

Herb

Industry, looking for good things about them.

 

In this syllabus, I may have erred on the good side of things, but I

think I am being even handed. I do not, as a relatively respectable

writer, want to be seen as advocating any dangerous herbs.

 

 

 

Here I visualize two categories of poisonous plants, the most

poisonous

having been used and exploited, one way or another by the

pharmaceutical

industry and to a lesser degree by the herbalists, and the less

poisonous having been used frequently by herbalists and less so by

the

pharmaceutical industry. There are hundreds that fall into each,

admittedly poorly defined, category but for simplicity's sake, I

have

limited our class discussion to a barker's dozen.

 

 

 

CAVEAT: No herb nor synthetic drug, is dangerous, if properly used.

All herbs contain antiallergens and allergens, anticarcinogens and

carcinogens, antimutagens and mutagens, antioxidants and prooxidant,

antitoxins (antidotes) and toxins and thousands of other pro and con

phytochemicals.

 

There are probably safe, medicinal, toxic and lethal doses for all

chemicals, natural and synthetic.

 

Your genes may well have memory of natural toxins which challenged

your

ancestors.

 

Your genes, though quick to learn, have no knowledge or memory of

tomorrows synthetic drugs and poisons.

 

 

 

DANGEROUS HERBS

 

 

 

Atropa belladonna L. " Belladonna " (POTATO FAMILY)

 

Conium maculatum L. " Poison Hemlock " (CELERY FAMILY)

 

Convallaria majalis L. " Lily of the Valley " (LILY FAMILY)

 

Datura stramonium L. " Jimson Weed " (POTATO FAMILY)

 

Euonymus atropurpureus Jacq. " Wahoo " (BITTERSWEET FAMILY)

 

Hyoscyamus niger L. " Henbane " (POTATO FAMILY)

 

Mandragora officinarum L. " Mandrake " (POTATO FAMILY)

 

Phoradendron flavescens (Pursh.) Nutt " Mistletoe " (MISTLETOE FAMILY)

 

*Physostigma venenosum Balf. " Ordeal Bean " (LEGUME FAMILY)

 

*Phytolacca americana L " Pokeweed " (POKEWEED FAMILY)

 

Podophyllum peltatum L. " Mayapple " (BARBERRY FAMILY)

 

*Ricinus comunis L. " Castorbean " (SPURGE FAMILY)

 

Sanguinaria canadensis L. " Bloodroot " (POPPY FAMILY)

 

Solanum dulcamara L. " Bittersweet Nightshade " (POTATO FAMILY)

 

*Taxus spp. " Yew " (YEW FAMILY)

 

Vinca spp. " Periwinkle " (DOGBANE FAMILY)

 

Viscum album L. " European Mistletoe " (MISTLETOE FAMILY)

 

 

 

 

 

THE MEDIA'S " DANGEROUS " HERBS

 

 

 

Acorus calamus L. Calamus (AROID FAMILY)

 

Aesculus hippocastanum L. Horse Chestnut (HORSE CHESTNUT FAMILY)

 

Arnica montana L. " Wolfbane " (ASTER FAMILY)

 

Artemisia absinthium L. " Absinth " (ASTER FAMILY)

 

Corynanthe yohimbe Schum. " Yohimbe " (COFFEE FAMILY)

 

Cytisus scoparius (L.) Link. " Scotch Broom " (LEGUME FAMILY)

 

Dipteryx odorata (Aubl.) Willd. " Tonka Bean " (LEGUME FAMILY)

 

Eupatorium rugosum Houtt. " Snakeroot " (ASTER FAMILY)

 

*Glycyrrhiza spp. " Licorice (LEGUME FAMILY)

 

*Hedeoma pulegioides (L.) Pers. (MINT FAMILY)

 

Heliotropium europaeum L. " Heliotrope " (BORAGE FAMILY)

 

Hypericum perforatum L. " St. John's-wort " (ST. JOHN'S-WORT FAMILY)

 

Ipomoea jalapa Nutt. " Jalap Root " (MORNING GLORY FAMILY)

 

Ipomoea purpurea (L.) Roth " Purple Morning Glory " (MORNING GLORY

FAMILY)

 

 

*Larrea tridentata (Sesse & Moq. Ex DC.) J. M. Coult. (CALTROPS

FAMILY)

 

Lobelia inflata L. " Lobelia " (LOBELIA FAMILY)

 

Matricaria chamomilla L. " Chamomile " (ASTER FAMILY)

 

*Mentha pulegium L. " European Pennyroyal " (MINT FAMILY)

 

*Piper methystichum Forst. " Kava-Kava " (BLACK PEPPER FAMILY) The

campaign against this innocuous herb which I find to be a pleasant

sedative, began in early 1997 with a media frenzy following

intoxications at a New Year's Eve party

 

Sassafras albidum (Nutt.) Nees " Sassafras " (LAUREL FAMILY)

 

*Senecio aureus L. " Squaw Weed " (ASTER FAMILY)

 

Symphytum spp. " Comfrey " (BORAGE FAMILY)

 

*Tanacetum vulgare L. " Tansy " (ASTER FAMILY)

 

*Teucrium chamaedrys " Germander " (MINT FAMILY)

 

*Tussilago farfara L. " Colt's Foot " (ASTER FAMILY)

 

 

 

* My additions from the popular press ( not included in FDA

Directive

7117.05) FDA Directive 7117.05, Transmittal 77-21 (03/22/77)

categorized

27 herbs as " unsafe " and I have assigned those, albeit arbitrarily,

to

the Really Dangerous and the Media Dangerous based on my personal

evaluations of more than 20 years, during which times I have

ingested

more than half of them... " The Bureau of Foods will consider

regulatory

action against those herbs which fall within the unsafe category

(see

attachment) and which become adulterated foods by use in herbal teas

or

otherwise.. . .Formal statements on Calamus, Safrole and Coumarin

(from

tonka bean) are found in 21 CFR 121.106 and on Stramonium

(Jimsonweed)

in 21 CFR 250.12)

 

 

 

(See Appendix 2: Biting the Biocide Bullet)

 

JoAnn Guest

mrsjo-

www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest/Diets