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Re:The Forbidden Island by kaybe on Friday July 19, 2013 @04:13AM (#6068858)
But then, some of the plants in the jungle seem to be amazing. I read some books about expeditions to find them for western medicine. One talked about a black paste you put on a tooth and it will simply fall out, no pain and no problem. A plant that makes women infertile for 7 years (they give it to their teenagers, apparently). Also, great plants against many sorts of other problems like abscesses.

Sadly, the results simply got ignored. The woman in the book was sent by a US pharmy company and brought back many plants and samples which she had won from the tribes in hard work (they don't just tell anyone). They probably still have them in a freezer somewhere.

An experienced person I talked to said that it probably was too much trouble and costs to clear it for drugs since there often are side effects, often psychological. He took one or two of the jungle things and said it was intense. Still, it's a great loss for our civilisation that it played out like this so far.

So, we'd have much to give, but also much to gain. Our diseases could be cured too.

Re:The Forbidden Island by ekianjo on Friday July 19, 2013 @04:45AM (#6068956)
Plants are limited resources. Even if you wanted to make drugs out of it, it does not scale very well. That's why most of our drugs are synthetic. That's scalable chemistry. Analyzing active ingredients in plants is a lengthy and costly process. And even if they worked as advertised, you would need to go through clinical trials to have them accepted in other countries. You don't put drugs on the market just like that.

Net, it's very costly and it's been tried before, as far as I know, on several plants from the Amazon area. I need to find the source again, but from what I remember most plants failed against placebo. There's probably a lot of placebo effect in the efficacy claimed by people living in these areas.

Re:The Forbidden Island by ars on Friday July 19, 2013 @04:20AM (#6068883)
None of those plants sound real. Sorry to burst your bubble.
Re:The Forbidden Island by kaybe on Friday July 19, 2013 @10:54AM (#6070525)
I agree. The claim should still be checked, IMHO. You didn't reach my bubble yet..