I use the computer but I am not savvy with its inner workings. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was trying to access my blog and discovered that when I typed www.ayslcorp.com/blog on Google Bing, it didn’t lead me to my blog. Instead, I was directed to TheScientist website www.the-scientist.com featuring an article “Biotechnology Turns To Ancient Remedies In Quest For Sources Of New Therapies” in its January 6, 1997 issue.
It is 9 pages long, printed. In this article, I was quoted in the last 3 pages, so were some prominent scientists and colleagues that I know, throughout the piece. They include Michael Balick, Eric Larson, Paul Gross, Steven King, Freddie Ann Hoffman, John Babish, and Sylvia Lee-Huang along with a few other Chinese scientists not within my area of expertise, whom I don’t know.
That reminds me of Mike Balick and me being suckered into a charity event in New York that turned out to be a scam organized by a Korean woman along with a fairly well-known TV personality (a male reporter) around New York. There were 2 expert speakers at the event. Mike and I. I had only agreed to particulate when I saw Mike’s name on the program and volunteered my time as did Mike who also saw my name. I don’t remember the details except it was on a yacht moored on the East River. There were maybe a dozen people. Mike and I met and we were chagrined. Then it rained cats and dogs, and I stayed briefly and left. Probably Mike did too. That was probably between 20 and 30 years ago. It could be the last time we saw each other.
Anyway, this article was published almost 20 years ago. But the following key elements in the standard drug discovery process from natural sources haven’t changed:
- It is still only focusing on active chemicals and their precise identification and characterization.
- Most scientists still view herbal medicines only as 1 or 2 of the many chemical(s) they contain or those isolated from them.
- The primary incentive continues to be greed, making as much money as possible from patented chemicals, totally ignoring non-patentable herbal therapeutics or other affordable, easy-to-make therapies to afford our rapidly-expanding, financially-struggling fellow Americans. What has happened to our democracy, family values, and compassion for your neighbors? The exploitation of American consumers by the drug industry and its interdependent associates has already firmly established itself in our society with its perpetual money-making machine that I call the vicious cycle of toxic drugs. The more toxic drugs this consortium produces, the more side effects and diseases they generate, which, in turn, need to be treated with more drugs, in perpetuity, and with total impunity for the drug consortium. I have described this vicious cycle extensively in my memoir (visit my blog www.ayslcorp.com/blog for more information). This vicious cycle is real, yet most Americans seem to have no clue about it. The drug consortium and a minor indebted, moneyed class are not going to do anything about it. It’s up to us the non-privileged public to start from the bottom up.
What is not discussed is the myth that Chinese medicine (CM) is not scientific but modern drug therapy is. How so? Just consider a chemical drug or an herb entering our body consisting of a myriad of chemicals and cells. It is supposed to go to certain enzyme, receptor or whatever, to block it from functioning certain ways so as to resolve the problem. How would it get there with all these billions of chemicals and cells in its path without precise guidance? Wouldn’t it bump into at least some of them and disturb our body’s extremely organized and well-functioning, balanced state, which would cause chaos, hence side effects? That process (more like gambling) certainly doesn’t seem scientific to me whether the ‘hero’ is a drug or an herb!
All the scientists quoted were either brainwashed by Big Pharma or had no insight into Chinese medicine, still persistently seeking active principles (simple chemicals) and wondering how, or oblivious to how, to solve the complex multichemical-herbs problem. Thus, over the past 20 plus years, the search for new drugs have not changed. It is still chemicals and more chemicals.
However, a quote from Mike Balick caught my attention when he describes CM versus other traditional herbal systems, “… It’s written down, taught in medical schools, and has been refined and developed over thousands of years. It’s a living, vibrant system compared with other traditional systems around the world that are in danger of dying out.” Mike is basically correct, except he seemed to be unaware that the CM had been heading towards the same fate. I have extensively explained this in my recent books and I am actively trying to let the world know about it. And that’s why I will continue to blog about this, as long as possible.
After all these years when I rediscovered this article and read my own comments quoted by the author, Alison Mack, I feel right at home. Here they are:
“It’s very easy to take a Chinese herb with multiple functions, go after a single active chemical and forget about the total picture,” observed pharmacognosist Albert Leung … “The real challenge,” Leung says, “is to take traditional herbs used for specific purposes and discover how they work.” That’s a difficult proposition, because “modern science can’t handle multiple effects,” he explains. “Well-known, useful herbs never get a complete study, because [Western scientists] behave like the blind men examining the elephant. They can only describe the trunk, the ear, the tail – they never understand the whole animal.”
Rather than attempt to describe every active chemical present in a Chinese herbal prescription, as well as their interactions, Leung and others advocate evaluating such complex formulas as a whole…
Leung describes the situation more vividly, “It’s a mess, a real Wild West. There are no regulations [governing the composition of herbal supplements].” Some unscrupulous manufacturers, he says, “are making millions selling water and hydrolyzed starch.”
Actually, I had totally forgotten about this article. That was at an era when the Office of Alternative Medicine still existed. Because of my background and experience, I was selected as its prime reviewer of proposals for its first or second round of research funding and I was given 6 proposals to review. Out of these six I reviewed, 2 or 3 that I recommended for funding, were funded. Other than that, I don’t remember much about my interactions with the government at that time. If you read my memoir, you’d see my history of interacting with our government, especially NIH, NCI, NCCAM, and my experience with federal contracts and grants. As in scientific research, all I can say is that too much politics is present, and it seems whoever speaks the loudest has the ‘truth.’
Regardless, since this article appeared 20 years ago, the drug industry has increasingly controlled our drug development and production processes and thus undeservedly receiving a large, if not the largest single, chunk of our government’s spending in health care. Looking back, nothing has changed after all these years. Traditional Chinese medicines (CM) have still not been properly investigated; we are only looking for specific chemicals in them or from them. Greed still dominates the drug and herbal industries. However, what I said (as quoted in the article) is still true. All these years, even though I have never had any career plans, I somehow have accomplished what I had originally set out to do, which is to introduce CM to modern health care alongside ‘modern’ drug therapy. When I read my own comments, I easily recognize my frank and sometimes tactless style of writing and speech which has offended some people and even colleagues and friends. I finally realized that. Which is why I have written my memoir to let others know of my communication handicap, not known to even some close friends, as a form of apology. At the same time, I have also documented my new discoveries regarding CM that can now be truly modernized to serve side by side conventional drug therapy, making use of our Phyto-True system, whose RBRM (an herbal standard) was recently granted a European patent. Although I no longer have my competent staff nor have I a publicity agent, at my advance age, I am starting to blog in earnest. Sooner or later, my message for safer and modernized tried-and-true natural medicines will get noticed.
The last time I checked, maybe 15 years ago, 80% or more of the world’s population still relied on old fashion traditional medicines. With this newly patented technology, it opens up new opportunities for truly modernized CM for world health care. But I don’t want these to be turned into consumer-gouging enterprises controlled by a few moneyed businessman as with modern drugs. Which is why I hope some unindebted health organizations, institutes, or governments would pick up the baton. I can email you a copy of the general prospectus. If interested, please clearly identify your organization in your request. I would be especially interested in receiving requests from nonprofit organizations. Or from individuals with social-media business expertise who believe in fairness in business and not just in maximizing profits at all costs, without compassion for the less fortunate. I am ready to offer my expertise free of charge as long as it is not used to exploit others.
A.Y. Leung