Artemisinin as antimalarial drug - info about the herb in question

[Guest guest]

As there have been a few questions and comments about

this recent announcement on the list, I got Chris's

permission to forward this to the list. Enjoy.

Christina, L.Ac. in Denver

 

> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

> http://www.iht.com/articles/519087.html

>

> Switch to herbal malaria drug gains momentum

> Donald G. McNeil Jr./NYT

> NYT Monday, May 10, 2004

>

> After years of hesitation, world health agencies are

> racing to

> acquire 100 million doses of a Chinese herbal drug

> that has proved

> strikingly effective against malaria, one of the

> leading killers of the

> poor.

> .

> The drug, artemisinin, is a compound based on

> qinghaosu, or

> sweet wormwood. First isolated in 1965 by Chinese

> military

> researchers, it cut the death rate by 97% in a

> malaria epidemic in

> Vietnam in the early 1990s.

> .

> It is rapidly replacing quinine derivatives and

> later drugs that the

> disease has outwitted by evolving resistant strains.

> This time, to

> prevent artemisinin from suffering the same fate, it

> will be given as

> part of multiple-drug cocktails as AIDS drugs are.

> .

> Until recently, big donors like the United States

> and Britain have

> opposed its use on a wide scale, saying it is too

> expensive, has

> not been tested enough on children and is not needed

> in areas

> where other malaria drugs still worked. Unicef, the

> United Nations

> Fund for Children, which procures drugs for the

> world's poorest

> countries, opposed its use during an Ethiopian

> epidemic last year,

> saying there was too little supply and switching

> drugs in mid-

> outbreak would cause confusion.

> .

> Now virtually all donors, Unicef and the World Bank

> have embraced

> it. The new Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and

> Malaria has

> given 11 countries grants to buy artemisinin and has

> instructed 34

> others to drop requests for two older drugs,

> chloroquine and

> sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine, and switch to the new

> one.

> .

> " We want countries to move very rapidly to use it as

> first-line

> treatment, " said Dr. Vinand Nantulya, the fund's

> malaria adviser.

> The fund expects to spend $450 million on the drugs

> over the next

> five years, he said.

> .

> The World Health Organization, a U.N. agency based

> in Geneva,

> estimates that 100 million doses will be needed by

> late 2005.

> .

> Malaria causes about 300 million illnesses a year,

> and at least 1

> million deaths - 90% of them in Africa, and most of

> them children

> under 5. Despite more than a century of eradication

> efforts, the

> disease is endemic from the Mekong Delta in Vietnam

> to the

> Amazon basin in Brazil, and particularly bad across

> central Africa,

> from the cane fields of Mozambique to the oases of

> Somalia to the

> rubber plantations of Liberia.

> .

> Like many tropical disease drugs, artemisinin is a

> fruit of military

> research. Chinese scientists first isolated it in

> 1965 while seeking

> a new antimalarial for Vietnamese troops fighting

> U.S. forces, said

> Dr. Nelson Tan, medical director of Holley

> Pharmaceuticals, which

> makes it in Chongqing, China. Another antimalarial

> still in use,

> mefloquine, was isolated at the Walter Reed Army

> Institute of

> Research in 1963 for U.S. troops in the same

> jungles. Under the

> name Lariam, it is still issued to troops and sold

> to travelers.

> .

> Artemisinin quickly cures fevers and also rapidly

> lowers blood-

> parasite levels, which can keep small outbreaks in

> heavily

> mosquito-infested areas from spreading into

> epidemics.

> .

> Two years ago, Dr. Dennis Carroll, a health adviser

> to the United

> States Agency for International Development, said

> artemisinin was

> " not ready for prime time. " On April 30, at a

> malaria conference in

> New York, he led a session on ways to induce farmers

> to plant

> more wormwood.

> .

> While denying that the U.S. had ever opposed

> artemisinin in

> principle, Carroll said more evidence had emerged

> that it was safe

> and older drugs were not working. Also, the creation

> of the Global

> Fund sped up grants for it. Dr. Stewart Tyson, a

> health expert in

> Britain's foreign aid agency, said his agency's mind

> was changed

> by its experience in Uganda, where resistance to

> older drugs

> climbed from 6% in 2000 to 31% in some areas in

> 2003.

> .

> The price of artemisinin cocktails has fallen from

> $2 per treatment

> to 90 cents or less as more companies in China,

> India and

> Vietnam have begun making them. Older drugs cost

> only 20 cents.

> Novartis, the Swiss drug giant, sells its

> artemisinin-lumefantrine

> mix, Co-artem, to poor countries for 10 cents less

> than it costs to

> make, a company official said. The same drug, under

> the name

> Riamet, is sold to European travelers for about $20.

>

> .

> As a plant material, artemisinin cannot be patented,

> said Dr. Allan

> Schapira, a policy specialist for the WHO's Roll

> Back Malaria

> campaign.

> .

> Though it grows wild even in the United States,

> artemesia is

> cultivated only in China, Vietnam and at pilot

> projects in Tanzania

> and India. It is planted in December and needs eight

> months to

> mature, and drug companies want firm orders from

> donors before

> they try to triple production.

> .

> Even if enough artemisinin can be made, obstacles

> will arise,

> experts warned. For example, said Dr. Kopano

> Mukelabai, a Unicef

> malaria specialist, shopkeepers will have to be

> trained not to sell

> patients one or two pills if they lack the money for

> a full course of

> 12.

> .

> And what Richard Allan, director of the Mentor

> Initiative, a public

> health group that fights malaria epidemics, called

> " the love of

> chloroquine " will have to be broken. That quinine

> derivative, in use

> since the 1950s, is now virtually useless against

> parasites, but

> poor people still buy it because it's cheap and

> lowers fever as

> aspirin does.

> .

> The New York Times

> After years of hesitation, world health agencies are

> racing to

> acquire 100 million doses of a Chinese herbal drug

> that has proved

> strikingly effective against malaria, one of the

> leading killers of the

> poor.

> .

> The drug, artemisinin, is a compound based on

> qinghaosu, or

> sweet wormwood. First isolated in 1965 by Chinese

> military

> researchers, it cut the death rate by 97% in a

> malaria epidemic in

> Vietnam in the early 1990s.

> .

> It is rapidly replacing quinine derivatives and

> later drugs that the

> disease has outwitted by evolving resistant strains.

> This time, to

> prevent artemisinin from suffering the same fate, it

> will be given as

> part of multiple-drug cocktails as AIDS drugs are.

> .

> Until recently, big donors like the United States

> and Britain have

> opposed its use on a wide scale, saying it is too

> expensive, has

> not been tested enough on children and is not needed

> in areas

> where other malaria drugs still worked. Unicef, the

> United Nations

> Fund for Children, which procures drugs for the

> world's poorest

> countries, opposed its use during an Ethiopian

> epidemic last year,

> saying there was too little supply and switching

> drugs in mid-

> outbreak would cause confusion.

> .

> Now virtually all donors, Unicef and the World Bank

> have embraced

> it. The new Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and

> Malaria has

> given 11 countries grants to buy artemisinin and has

> instructed 34

> others to drop requests for two older drugs,

> chloroquine and

> sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine, and switch to the new

> one.

> .

> " We want countries to move very rapidly to use it as

> first-line

> treatment, " said Dr. Vinand Nantulya, the fund's

> malaria adviser.

> The fund expects to spend $450 million on the drugs

> over the next

> five years, he said.

> .

> The World Health Organization, a U.N. agency based

> in Geneva,

> estimates that 100 million doses will be needed by

> late 2005.

> .

> Malaria causes about 300 million illnesses a year,

> and at least 1

> million deaths - 90% of them in Africa, and most of

> them children

> under 5. Despite more than a century of eradication

> efforts, the

> disease is endemic from the Mekong Delta in Vietnam

> to the

> Amazon basin in Brazil, and particularly bad across

> central Africa,

> from the cane fields of Mozambique to the oases of

> Somalia to the

> rubber plantations of Liberia.

> .

> Like many tropical disease drugs, artemisinin is a

> fruit of military

> research. Chinese scientists first isolated it in

> 1965 while seeking

> a new antimalarial for Vietnamese troops fighting

> U.S. forces, said

> Dr. Nelson Tan, medical director of Holley

> Pharmaceuticals, which

> makes it in Chongqing, China. Another antimalarial

> still in use,

> mefloquine, was isolated at the Walter Reed Army

> Institute of

> Research in 1963 for U.S. troops in the same

> jungles. Under the

> name Lariam, it is still issued to troops and sold

> to travelers.

> .

> Artemisinin quickly cures fevers and also rapidly

> lowers blood-

> parasite levels, which can keep small outbreaks in

> heavily

> mosquito-infested areas from spreading into

> epidemics.

> .

> Two years ago, Dr. Dennis Carroll, a health adviser

> to the United

> States Agency for International Development, said

> artemisinin was

> " not ready for prime time. " On April 30, at a

> malaria conference in

> New York, he led a session on ways to induce farmers

> to plant

> more wormwood.

> .

> While denying that the U.S. had ever opposed

> artemisinin in

> principle, Carroll said more evidence had emerged

> that it was safe

> and older drugs were not working. Also, the creation

> of the Global

> Fund sped up grants for it. Dr. Stewart Tyson, a

> health expert in

> Britain's foreign aid agency, said his agency's mind

> was changed

> by its experience in Uganda, where resistance to

> older drugs

> climbed from 6% in 2000 to 31% in some areas in

> 2003.

> .

> The price of artemisinin cocktails has fallen from

> $2 per treatment

> to 90 cents or less as more companies in China,

> India and

> Vietnam have begun making them. Older drugs cost

> only 20 cents.

> Novartis, the Swiss drug giant, sells its

> artemisinin-lumefantrine

> mix, Co-artem, to poor countries for 10 cents less

> than it costs to

> make, a company official said. The same drug, under

> the name

> Riamet, is sold to European travelers for about $20.

>

> .

> As a plant material, artemisinin cannot be patented,

> said Dr. Allan

> Schapira, a policy specialist for the WHO's Roll

> Back Malaria

> campaign.

> .

> Though it grows wild even in the United States,

> artemesia is

> cultivated only in China, Vietnam and at pilot

> projects in Tanzania

> and India. It is planted in December and needs eight

> months to

> mature, and drug companies want firm orders from

> donors before

> they try to triple production.

> .

> Even if enough artemisinin can be made, obstacles

> will arise,

> experts warned. For example, said Dr. Kopano

> Mukelabai, a Unicef

> malaria specialist, shopkeepers will have to be

> trained not to sell

> patients one or two pills if they lack the money for

> a full course of

> 12.

> .

> And what Richard Allan, director of the Mentor

> Initiative, a public

> health group that fights malaria epidemics, called

> " the love of

> chloroquine " will have to be broken. That quinine

> derivative, in use

> since the 1950s, is now virtually useless against

> parasites, but

> poor people still buy it because it's cheap and

> lowers fever as

> aspirin does.

> .

> The New York Times

> After years of hesitation, world health agencies are

> racing to

> acquire 100 million doses of a Chinese herbal drug

> that has proved

> strikingly effective against malaria, one of the

> leading killers of the

> poor.

> .

> The drug, artemisinin, is a compound based on

> qinghaosu, or

> sweet wormwood. First isolated in 1965 by Chinese

> military

> researchers, it cut the death rate by 97% in a

> malaria epidemic in

> Vietnam in the early 1990s.

> .

> It is rapidly replacing quinine derivatives and

> later drugs that the

> disease has outwitted by evolving resistant strains.

> This time, to

> prevent artemisinin from suffering the same fate, it

> will be given as

> part of multiple-drug cocktails as AIDS drugs are.

> .

> Until recently, big donors like the United States

> and Britain have

> opposed its use on a wide scale, saying it is too

> expensive, has

> not been tested enough on children and is not needed

> in areas

> where other malaria drugs still worked. Unicef, the

> United Nations

> Fund for Children, which procures drugs for the

> world's poorest

> countries, opposed its use during an Ethiopian

> epidemic last year,

> saying there was too little supply and switching

> drugs in mid-

> outbreak would cause confusion.

> .

> Now virtually all donors, Unicef and the World Bank

> have embraced

> it. The new Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and

> Malaria has

> given 11 countries grants to buy artemisinin and has

> instructed 34

> others to drop requests for two older drugs,

> chloroquine and

> sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine, and switch to the new

> one.

> .

> " We want countries to move very rapidly to use it as

> first-line

> treatment, " said Dr. Vinand Nantulya, the fund's

> malaria adviser.

> The fund expects to spend $450 million on the drugs

> over the next

> five years, he said.

> .

> The World Health Organization, a U.N. agency based

> in Geneva,

> estimates that 100 million doses will be needed by

> late 2005.

> .

> Malaria causes about 300 million illnesses a year,

> and at least 1

> million deaths - 90% of them in Africa, and most of

> them children

> under 5. Despite more than a century of eradication

> efforts, the

> disease is endemic from the Mekong Delta in Vietnam

> to the

> Amazon basin in Brazil, and particularly bad across

> central Africa,

> from the cane fields of Mozambique to the oases of

> Somalia to the

> rubber plantations of Liberia.

> .

> Like many tropical disease drugs, artemisinin is a

> fruit of military

> research. Chinese scientists first isolated it in

> 1965 while seeking

> a new antimalarial for Vietnamese troops fighting

> U.S. forces, said

> Dr. Nelson Tan, medical director of Holley

> Pharmaceuticals, which

> makes it in Chongqing, China. Another antimalarial

> still in use,

> mefloquine, was isolated at the Walter Reed Army

> Institute of

> Research in 1963 for U.S. troops in the same

> jungles. Under the

> name Lariam, it is still issued to troops and sold

> to travelers.

> .

> Artemisinin quickly cures fevers and also rapidly

> lowers blood-

> parasite levels, which can keep small outbreaks in

> heavily

> mosquito-infested areas from spreading into

> epidemics.

> .

> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

 

 

 

 

 

Movies - Buy advance tickets for 'Shrek 2'

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[Guest guest]

At 02:07 PM 5/12/2004 -0700, you wrote:

>As there have been a few questions and comments about

>this recent announcement on the list, I got Chris's

>permission to forward this to the list. Enjoy.

>Christina, L.Ac. in Denver

>

>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

>> http://www.iht.com/articles/519087.html

 

Hi Christina:

I don't know if you saw it, but I posted a link to the same article

yesterday (at SFGate). I followed up with a post, after someone ID'd the

herb, as " Sweet Annie *was* Sweet Woodruff. "

Here's what I posted:

Interesting article. Interesting medical and political and legal facts.

 

http://tinyurl.com/35yx4

-----

Just wanted to add a note about cutting and pasting online articles,

perhaps something you did not know, is that it is in violation of the

copyright of the source, and against something called " fair value " (I think

that is the term.) looks down on c/p articles, and can take measures

against groups where it happens. Don't know what those measures are, but

the practice is forbidden via the TOS of . Here's a link:

 

 

We're all free to quote parts of an article (I think that is the 'fair

value " part) for discussion, but not the entire article. FWIW, there is a

big discussion going on in a private herb list (non-) that is very

interesting (after I posted the link to the article.) Many have experience

with the herb, the politics, etc.

HTH.

 

 

http://member.newsguy.com/~herblady