Dr. Albert Y. Leung

From my Leung’s (Chinese) Herb News (LCHN-37, Mar/Apr 2002), reprinted in My Life & Rollercoaster Career  (MLRC 2018, pp. 466-472); the following is just one of 3 topics and on pp. 470-472:

HOW TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF SCIENTIFIC DATA ON HERBS

In order to do this, we have to address the problem at 3 levels:

(1) research; (2) publication; and (3) abstracting, indexing, and data input into databases.

I am not too concerned about basic scientific research technologies. We all learned those in college and then graduate school, and further honed our skill in our ‘real’ research jobs. What I am concerned about is that most researchers who have not been trained in natural medicines don’t seem to have a feel for the importance of the clear definition of these materials before using them as objects of research. Although we have all been trained in the use of good science in our research, we often ignore it when it comes to herb research. We all know the importance of applying the right quality control to the research material (e.g., a chemical or drug substance) and would never accept one that is not well defined. For instance, we would never think of investigating the effects of alcohol on, say, human cognitive function, by using a liquid called ‘alcohol.’ Based on our training, it is almost second nature for us to clearly define the alcohol (in this case, obviously ethanol, because it’s not ethical or permissible to use other alcohols on human experimentation), its concentration, purity (does it contain toxic adulterants?), etc. We would never accept just any ‘alcohol’ because it is an ‘alcohol’ or close enough, such as methyl alcohol or isopropyl alcohol. Yet many research studies on herbal medicines/supplements use test materials that are vaguely defined, if at all. Terms such as “ginseng,” “echinacea,” “kava kava,” and “St. John’s wort” have been routinely used alone as sole description of the test materials used in the studies, in at least 1 of the 3 levels mentioned above. In some of the better-defined (but still grossly inadequate) materials used, researchers may use the Latin binomials of the plant species (from which the material is derived), believing that that would be the definitive proof of identity. However, without providing which part of the plant supplies the test material, the scientific name of the plant is meaningless, and the study using this still-basically-undefined material will produce dubious and meaningless results. For example, again using hawthorn, how meaningful would the study of “Crataegus monogyna Jacq.” be? Here we have ‘scientifically identified’ English or one-seed hawthorn. But it has no relevance to the material under study. Is it the leaf, the seed, the fruit, the flowers, the root, or a combination of these parts? Also, is it the powdered crude material (whatever plant part) or is it an extract in water, ethanol (%?), or other organic solvent? And if so, how concentrated is it? Also, is it standardized to chemical markers, and which ones? These are just a few variables that must be clearly defined for resulting data to be reproducible and usable. Amazingly, many reports still simply use the name of the species (e.g., ‘hawthorn’ or ‘Crataegus monogyna’) to describe the materials used in the studies, at least in level 3 and sometimes also in level 2. No wonder we are suddenly being inundated with so much herb research data that are dubious or ambiguous and controversial! Which reminds me of how the use of Latin binomials to define a plant species is only as valid as the competence of the person who uses it. I used to know a flavor chemist who was in charge of the laboratories of an extraction company. He had the Latin binomials of most plant species associated with the materials being extracted at his plant memorized, though he had no clue as to how to identify the plant materials other than a few very common ones used in flavors, such as fenugreek seed, carob pod, chili pepper, coffee bean, etc. He was quick to put in the Latin binomials on his certificates of analysis, even though he might have no idea whether the materials extracted were actually from the plant species he put down on his certificates of analysis. Yet he was very proud of the fact that he knew the Latin binomials of plants and followed ‘standard scientific protocol’ when making his reports (certificates of analysis). To me, this is a typical case of a theoretical intention that does not always lead to a proper successful execution. Furthermore, in this case, it gives one a false sense of security by believing a correctly identified test material has been used. I suspect this situation is not unique. It probably applies to many companies involved in herb research and/or manufacture as well as to academia and other research institutions. The key to improving the quality of scientific herb research data lies in the clear definition of the test materials (crude botanicals and different forms of extracts) used in any research.

Currently, there are no official or universally recognized guidelines (or criteria) for defining such materials. The late Dr. Varro (Tip) Tyler and I have independently addressed this issue (Issues 19 & 35 ¹⁶⁰). In my article, I have actually provided guidelines for defining these test materials, which can and should be used at all 3 levels. Those criteria were first published in the March/April 1999 issue of this Newsletter and later reprinted in the November/December 2001 issue. Yet to date, none of the journals in our fields (pharmacognosy, natural products, phytomedicine, herbal medicine, Chinese medicines, ethnomedicine, etc.) which should be the leaders in herb research, has set minimal criteria for defining test materials as conditions in accepting manuscripts for publication. I just don’t get it. How can my colleagues, who are publishers, editors, or reviewers of these journals and who are supposed to be experts in this field, continue to allow the publication of herb research data that are often not worth the paper on which they are printed?

Furthermore, the longer these publications are allowed to continue to inundate us with ambiguous and dubious (some egregious) information, the more expensive and difficult it will be for us to rectify the problem. Without reliable scientific research data on which to base further research on botanical medicines or dietary supplements, we will continue to generate irreproducible, ambiguous, dubious, and, yes, controversial data. And we will be wasting our taxpayers’ money by continuing to support such research. The end result would be a declaration by the pharmaceutical and medical professions telling the world ‘I told you so,’ supported by scientific ‘evidence’ from research sponsored by our government. The only way to rectify this whole mess and stop wasting any more money and energy (first to produce dubious/ambiguous data and then try to deal with the controversy and more misinformation generated by these data) is to immediately institute criteria or guidelines for researchers, journal editors/reviewers, and data entry professionals (abstractors, indexers, database managers) to clearly define test materials before being accepted for research, publication, and/or incorporation into databases. These criteria should be instituted at all 3 levels – research, publication, and database. To start, they don’t need to be all-at-once comprehensive. The most urgent need is for these criteria to be there so that professionals at all 3 levels of the information generation and dissemination chain will be aware of the futility and wastefulness of dealing with undefined research materials.

The key is to get them to stop equating a natural test material to a pure chemical drug or a plant species (common or scientific name), and to start thinking about what that test material actually is or should be. This will be the only way to ensure that the information generated from botanical medicine/supplement research has a universally acceptable level of quality, which scientific researchers from healthcare and related fields may use with confidence to develop new, credible, and useful data.¹⁶¹

160 Tyler, V.E., Scientific Review of Alt. Med. 4(2): 17-21(2000).

161 C.A. Swanson, “Suggested guidelines for articles about botanical dietary supplements,” Am J Clin Nutr 2002; 75: 8-10.;

David versus Goliath:

National Cancer Institute (NCI) Small Business

Innovation Research (SBIR) Database Phase II Contract

— What if…?

It was in 1985, while I was having dinner when a former colleague from Franklin Institute of Philadelphia, Bernie Epstein, called. We both had worked on a project with NCI on some international cancer database a year or two earlier. Now, he was working for Ketron, a small computer database company not far from Philadelphia. He was in charge of grant writing and routinely reviewed publications announcing requests for proposals (RFP’s) from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other government agencies. He saw one from the NCI on building a computer database for medicinal plants with antitumor activities, basically saying the jungles were disappearing and we needed to document as many of these plants with antitumor activities as possible before they were lost forever. There was nothing about finding antitumor plants from traditional medicines such as Chinese or Indian. I told Bernie that I had no experience with jungle medicine nor did I believe it to be that worthwhile.

Then, after dinner and overnight, a thought came to me. Why go to the jungle? Doing that might be glamorous and ‘sexy’ compared to the dull task of investigating established traditional medicines like Chinese medicine. But in Chinese herbal medicine, there were already more than 10,000 herbal drugs documented. Among them, one could find many with antitumor activities if one knew how to interpret the Chinese medicinal records. And I specialized in recognizing potential new active chemicals for use in drugs and cosmetics from traditional Chinese herbs. So I called Bernie the next day to tell him about my idea, which was to deviate from the requirements of the original RFP. Instead of concentrating on jungle medicines, we would emphasize traditional Chinese herbs with their rich history most of which has already been well documented. While the original RFP had jungle medicines as the priority, with systematic traditional medicines only as a minor topic, our proposal stressed Chinese herbs, with traditional medicines of other countries (including jungle medicines) as a minor concern. For the non-Chinese botanical areas, I was able to persuade Dr. Richard Evans Schultes of Harvard University to be one of our three consultants, the others being Dr. James Duke of the U.S. Agricultural Research Services, also a well-known botanist and author, and Dr. Ara Der Marderosian, Professor of Pharmacognosy at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy. Dr. Schultes is generally considered to be the father of Ethnobotany, a field based on the use of medicinal plants by native peoples. Since I was going to be the Principal Investigator, my company (AYSL Corp.) was the intended contractor and Bernie’s employer, Ketron, Inc., was the subcontractor. We submitted our proposal and out of thirteen or so companies having submitted bids, my company and a company newly founded by Dr. Norman Farnsworth along with some of his associates and assistants, won the Phase I contract, each of $50,000. Dr. Farnsworth was probably the biggest name in pharmacognosy during the past several decades. He was well connected to NCI and other government agencies. I wouldn’t be surprised if he or an associate or assistant had persuaded NCI to put out that RFP so that his group could form a private company to take advantage of the database, NAPRALERT, that was well known worldwide. This database had been built by Dr. Farnsworth’s group with government funds over a period of more than a decade. I believe they had expected that they would get the NCI SBIR contract. A tell-tail sign was in the wording of the RFP announcement. The qualifications of the applicant-candidate fit him and his group perfectly. Nevertheless, Dr. Farnsworth himself was not on the proposal.

                 While I had research and innovation experiences, my qualifications and those stated in the RFP didn’t match for the most part. But the reviewers must have liked our proposal and my approach along with my Chinese herbal resources, otherwise they wouldn’t have awarded us one of the two winning Phase I contracts, especially as our research focus was not even what the RFP specified. The Phase I contract was a proof-of-concept endeavor and would last six months, I think. Then both companies would demonstrate their products at NCI headquarters and if acceptable, would be invited to submit a Phase II proposal. The winner of that Phase II proposal would be awarded a contract worth $1 million to build and commercialize the database. Consequently, we both submitted our proposals. Normally, the decision of which company would be the winner after submission of the proposals would take about nine months. But in our case, a year passed without any notification. Then, more months elapsed and still no word. When I called NCI, I got conflicting responses, from ‘not ready’ to ‘both proposals were recommended for funding.’ I had never heard of such a thing. I always thought that whoever won the competition would get the contract, not both. I became impatient and suspicious. Finally, I got fed up and wrote to my Congresswoman, Marge Roukema, of Bergen County, New Jersey. After some time, I got the response that I wouldn’t have gotten if I had not been so upset that I had written to my congresswoman (Marge) who also happened to be a close friend of our close friends, Drs. Raul and Alba Ludmer, and whose husband, Dr. Richard Roukema and Raul were both psychiatrists and practiced in the same building in Ridgewood, N.J. The letter from the Department of Human Health and Services was signed by Robert E. Windom, M.D., Assistant Secretary for Health, telling us that AYSL Corporation had basically won the competition, “… Dr. Leung’s proposal received a score of 770, with 1,000 being the maximum possible number of points, and was the higher ranked proposal. The program staff recommended that this proposal be considered for funding in that scientific area, an indication that the AYSL proposal is of value….”

                 The knowledge we had beaten a monolithic organization was a consolation prize for me, though without the Phase II contract. I often wonder if I would have ever received any response from anyone if I had not been mad enough that I had, for the first time, utilized my personal connection with our congresswoman. I also contacted our senator, Frank Lautenberg, at the same time, but I don’t remember if he even acknowledged my letter. But if he did, it would have been an unmemorable form letter from a staff member. One of my major social handicaps is that I have never learned how to use personal or business connections for my own benefits, which I have always felt gauche, coming from me. Asking Congresswoman Roukema to write that letter was one of the two or three times I have used personal connections for my own gains. Another was when I asked one of my father’s prominent friends in Hong Kong, Dr. Ambrose So (see Chapter 1: Growing up in Asia) to help me present a proposal to the Hong Kong government for forming an international consortium to properly modernize Chinese medicines in the early 2000’s. That failed due to the entrenched drug-development and drug-therapy system that for decades had a solid grip on modern (aka American) health care concentrating on modern toxic chemical drugs.

                 In any case, Dr. Farnsworth was bigger than life for his graduates and most people in the pharmacognosy, natural products, and medicinal chemistry fields. Almost everyone knew him. He was quite a character, often made crude jokes to see the reaction of his listeners. I respected him and he seemed to respect me because he was always courteous to me even though I was quite a few years younger. We never collaborated in our work, but were once together on the same committee for setting botanical standards which he chaired. However, that was finally dissolved without accomplishing anything like many such committees. I remember fondly at an American Society of Pharmacognosy annual meeting in Storrs, Connecticut in the mid-1970’s, we were in a poker game together with Dr. Gordon Svoboda (the one who developed the anti-leukemia drugs from Vinca alkaloids at Eli Lilly) and one other colleague whose name I can’t recall. Norm told a lot of jokes and we all drank, though I barely (maybe up to a half glass), as I was not a drinker. My wife has tried for forty years to get me finally to drink up to one glass of wine without beginning to talk to a houseplant. Now, I can honestly tell others that my wife is probably the only woman in America who encourages her husband to drink more. Anyway, I cleaned them out that night and was being teased about my being a beginner at the game. But honestly, it was the first time I played poker with friends for real money (meaning not play money). That night’s take was probably no more than 20 or 30 dollars. Nevertheless, for quite a while I was teased as being a cardsharp.

                 Norm and my thesis advisor, Dr. Ara G. Paul (later Pharmacy Dean), and Dr. Varro E. Tyler, Jr. (who wrote the “Honest Herbal”) were peers. He was from the Massachusetts ‘school’ trained under Dr. Herber Youngken, Jr. while Drs. Paul and Tyler were trained under Dr. Arthur Schwarting in Connecticut. After I found out I had won the NCI contract bid, though without the money, at first I was very satisfied and proud about it – to have beaten the best team in its own game. But then, I felt badly about letting down a bunch of young researchers and staff under Norm’s organization, because earlier at a meeting in Chicago I had met one of Norm’s staff and learned that she chipped in to found Naprotech to respond to the RFP. I would have liked to collaborate with Dr. Farnsworth while he was alive. But because I didn’t know how or liked to schmooze with others, I never tried with Norm. It’s what I call it my social handicap. On the other hand, I wouldn’t feel badly breaking up a ‘scam’ if the RFP indeed originated from a buddy system between government and academia that favors Norm’s group. After all, Norm knew all NCI’s key people. After his death a number of years ago, the natural products database NAPRALERT continues to be dominated by Norm’s group and his influence – geared mainly to chemistry with no provisions for traditional medicines other than using them as raw material sources to discover and develop new chemical drugs, leaving the huge resources of systematic traditional medicines (with actual human-use experiences) untouched except exploited as source of chemicals to be turned into new chemical drugs. Their true value has never been properly tested even up to this day!

                 In the last few years, the topic of cronyism among academic and government institutions has at times popped up. To me, although Dr. Farnsworth’s group has dominated the ‘natural products’ field (especially database) for over forty years, it seemed obvious there were scientists out there who thought my alternative

idea was good and deserved funding, as both Phase I and Phase II reviewers liked our proposals and would have funded our Phase II research also. But it was also obvious that that project was not meant for me. Can you imagine if Norm’s group had a higher ranked proposal than mine and his was recommended for funding and NCI didn’t fund it, saying that there were not enough funds to go around?

After having been in this diversified field for over fifty years and seen practically

everything, including ‘empire building’ in academia and the ‘revolving door’ between government and industry, I don’t think this whole episode of the NCI database contract was totally free of cronyism.

That happened thirty years ago. There were already scientists in the natural product and health fields who would have liked to see more diversity in the technologies used in these fields. The idea that there is (should be) only one type of easily identified and analyzed drugs available, which invariably would end up toxic, did not sit well with them. It seems obvious there were enough reviewers of our proposals, that liked to see changes in these fields, and saw potential in my approach, even though it was not the original theme of the RFP. On looking back, it has been over thirty years since NCI rejected our alternative route (if not new direction) in our natural drug therapy, and 45 years since President Richard Nixon declared war on cancer. In that time, I don’t see anything new that has materialized other than maintaining the status quo of toxic drugs begetting new diseases that require more of the same.

Isn’t it time to give new ideas like mine another try?

Like many people, I was very upset the last couple of weeks watching TV coverage of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and his killing civilians.  Those images of destruction and of mothers and children trying to escape the war!    I shouldn’t be watching them, but couldn’t help it, knowing I was about 4 yrs old when we left Hong Kong for my mother’s village in Guangdong with my family to escape the Japanese occupation during World War II.  I could be one of those young Ukrainian children on TV!  That has brought back my own memories of war, anguish, and tears.   I could just turn off my TV, but I didn’t.  I have no idea why. 

           Regardless, during the past 11 days, I had another epiphany directing me not to actively seek funding for my PBN mycelium work anymore.  Just like wars, healthcare therapeutics (including psilocybin, P) are all about money and power, humanitarianism comes last.  The necessary technical elements of my knowhow in producing PBN mycelium have already been done and published in detail.  Whoever have the training and dedication will be able to produce it, even with possibly one more psilocybin analog (e.g., aeruginascin) because I had found at least two more in Psilocybe baeocystis.  In months, tops a couple of years, I believe growing and handling psychedelics will be legal.  I’ll then help whatever group(s) that are not just chasing money, to start a new industry of natural PBN or P mycelial products, bypassing the synthetic P, geared at benefitting those who need them but otherwise cannot afford them.   

           In the meantime, I’ll continue to blog and write articles on this topic to help those who want to bypass chemicals derived from toxic petroleum.  Also, I’ll try to finish my last book, “My Psilocybin Trip.”

           #war #Ukraine #TV #children #mothers #family #Putin #killingcivilians #psychopaths #HongKong #WorldWarII #naturaltherapeutics #PBNmycelium #psilocybin #baeocystin #norbaeocystin #aeruginascin #humanitarianism #psychedelics #newinustry #bypassingsynthetics

Right from the start, we treated our #body like a #single #entity same as #traditional #herbal #medicines (#THM).  Then, we discovered the #extreme #complexity of both, but zeroed in on their #miniscule #details and found all these #fascinating #atomic / #subatomic #entities (units of #DNA, #RNA, #peptides, #enzymes, #receptors, etc.).   We started to give them new names (#specialties) and add #new #terminologies befitting their #elite #status.   Then, we tried to postulate how they’d behave and work in our #live #body and #inanimate #THM, though our #interests have mostly been concentrated on the #immediate #environments #surrounding these #minute entities.  Never have we tried to correlate these #novelties to the #total #health of our living being, nor to the nonliving time-tested THM.   Instead, we have been #fixated on only the #nano or #pico entities, and not on our #whole health and #wellbeing.   

           Meanwhile, the #misconception of #lumping #together, as #scientific #equals – a #synthetic #chemical, our #complex #body, and the #time-#tested #THM – has enabled the #wrong #scientific #protocol (set up many decades ago) to #create and #perpetuate the #vicious #cycle (#VC).  See my article “A #Disruptive #Concept in Drug Therapy” posted earlier.  This is like a perfect storm.  Bad things appeared inconspicuously one after another, all leading to making the vicious cycle (VC) simultaneously #destructive and, at times, #beneficial to our health until in recent years.  Then, more and more evidence has shown the drugs’ #side #effects to cause new #diseases that require more new drugs to treat.  A typical example is #Valbenazine (#Ingrezza) for treating #Tardive #Dyskinesia caused by various #prescription #drugs (#psychotic, #epileptic, #gastrointestinal, etc.).   I am sure there are others, but I just don’t have time to check them out.  The fact is, the VC exists, but no one seems to bother to disprove it, especially when it persistently brings #Big #Pharma & Co. #financial #benefits (#perpetual #income).  The more #toxic a drug, whether due to #itself or its #impurities (never seriously tested), the more chances of other new diseases that require more new drugs to treat.  Which is why no #drug #makers are #complaining; nor #insurers and #lawyers.  The blunt of the VC’s #negative #impact on #health and #finances is borne by over 95% of the #American #public (mainly the #poor and the rest of us #nonmultimillionaires) as #billionaires are self-exempted by laws enacted by their #minions in #Congress.  Can we change that?  Not in another 2 or 3 generations if we continue to elect #multimillionaires or #uneducated #greedy #morons to our #government.    

           #Republicans #Democrats #Presidents #greed

I must confess I spent most of the evening of #VeteransDay (November 11) watching #warmovies and listening to #marchingsongs.   All these brought back memories of #WWII, and tears.  I should say “selective” memories, as when we left #Hong Kong to go to my mother’s village (~100 miles NW of HK) to escape the war, I was 4 years old, yet the only things I remember about HK was – the air-raid shelter was very crowded and our house had an accordion metal sliding gate at its front door.  I must have seen #bodies without heads #floating in the #harbor, because the #Japanese #soldiers were #beheading #Chinese #civilians along the water front after they took HK.   I must have blocked off that memory in subconscious self-defense. 

           After spending 4 years of #carefree childhood in my mother’s village away from the #ravages of the war itself (except one famine), we saw Japanese soldiers being marched through town, and knew the war was over.  That later somehow evoked my memory of the #FlyingTigers of #ClaireChennault and Uncle Doon Ng (Wu) from my mothers’ village who was a colonel in the Chinese air force at the time, both fighting the Japanese out of #Chongqing (Chungking), China’s wartime capital.  My fond memories of #Americanarmedforces came later via their marching songs and WW II movies.  For some reason, I have always felt connected with #Americanveterans, and I intend to do something for them with my PBN mycelia.

           I am lucky to be born into a family with scholastic traits on my father’s side and TCM traits on my mother’s side.  Over a few generations, my father’s family had gone through hard times but continued to survive until WW II, then we lost everything to bombs. 

           I grew up with my mother’s family, in HK and in her village during the war.  My childhood in the village was safe and well protected by my family members.  School was never my thing, especially the boring compulsory subjects.  Hence, I #flunkedout of elementary school, and then high school.  But I picked up #Spanish, #French and #German during my freshman and sophomore years and somehow managed to skip my junior year and graduated with honors from another high school.  We were poor at the time, but Uncle Siu and Aunt Pauline supported my college education in #Taiwan where I graduated with a B.S. in #Pharmacy.  Then, after returning to Hong Kong and taught chemistry for a year, I came to the #UniversityofMichigan in Ann Arbor in 1962 on a #teachingassistantship in #Pharmacognosy.

My PhD research was growing #Psilocybe #baeocystis #mycelium in #liquidculture, inducing it to produce #psilocybin (P), #psilocin, and other close analogs (sister compounds), two of which I isolated, determined their chemical structures, and named them #baeocystin (B) and #norbaeocystin (N).  Then, I had a long and diversified, #independent #career (#phytochemist, #microbiologist, #naturalproductchemist, #Chinese herbalist, #herbal scientist, & #entrepreneur) for 55 years until I rejoined the #psychedelics space and discovered a potential #newindustry based on #naturals, #BYPASSING the #synthetics, using my PBN mycelia as the vehicle to start this new industry.  The unique thing about this PBN mycelium is that it can be grown in known nutrients, forming pellets in the fermenter (aka bioreactor).   You simply harvest them, rinse them with distilled water, and freeze-dried them.  That’s your product!  No toxic contaminants from the soil or the synthetic process.

           During my long career, I responded to government #requestsforproposals (#RFP) only twice, and both times I won the contract/grant.  So, I know my fellow scientists like my innovations; my projects and successes were real, not just luck, or cronyism.

Two issues have prompted me to consider this new industry of #natural #psychedelics (#PBN):

1. We know all synthetic drugs are toxic, due to the drugs themselves or the #impurities present.  NO studies have disproved this.
2. Despite the closeness of B and N (#4-hydroxytryptamine, after losing its phosphate group in our body) to the #neurotransmitter, #serotonin (S, aka #5-hydroxytryptamine), no one has produced either chemical naturally for further studies.  Thus, #4hydoxytryptamine and #5hydroxytryptamine are basically non-identical #twins!  Can B and N rejuvenize our brain cells?   Regardless, they have no toxic petrochemicals lurking in them to cause us harm as in #syntheticdrugs.

It’s time to break up synthetic drug-therapy’s #vicious #cycle or bypass it.  Without the v.c., much human #pain and #suffering can be avoided, along with much less money going to the #exploiters of #humanhealth.  Hence, when I have the chance, I’ll use my PBN mycelium to bypass the toxic synthetic psilocybin, to help our veterans who fought for our country and came home wounded with #PostTraumaticStressDisorder (#PTSD). 

           This medicine, mycelial supplement, or whatever you call it, is sure NOT to have the toxic properties inherent in synthetic drugs which beget #newdiseases that require more drugs to treat, hence the v.c.  But it is a #PerpetualFountainofGold for #BigPharma & Co.

.    

[Reprinted from LCHN-25 Mar/Apr 2000 in “My Life & Rollercoaster Career pp. 378-380.”]

Whom should you believe?  For years we have been told that salt is bad (high blood pressure!), coffee is bad (caffeine!), eggs may be worse (heart attack!), butter is bad (cholesterol!), margarine is good (no cholesterol!), estrogen is bad (and now good!), and “fiber” is good (prevents cancer! lowers cholesterol!), etc., etc.  Now, one is not so sure! 

         In a recent article on fiber by a reporter of the Associated Press, reprinted in The Record of New Jersey,the title proclaims “Another magic bullet misses mark” followed by “Fiber, miracle food no more, one of many recent letdowns.” ²  This gives you the impression that we should no longer include fiber in our diet.  But what is fiber in the first place?  Unlike specific, well-defined chemicals or drugs such as caffeine, aspirin, or cocaine, fiber and other food substances being studied in humans are seldom clearly defined.  Add to this the high variability of the complex human organism, you have many strikes against you in trying to obtain meaningful results.  I can see the rationale behind the use of statistics to determine the validity or significance of a study using a pure chemical drug ON a complex human being, where at least the non-human part is constant.  On the other hand, I can’t see the justification of using statistics to rationalize the results of studying complex variable natural materials ON an even more complex human organism.  With the potential myriad of permutations among the countless variables, how scientific can these studies be and how valid their results?  This is an aspect of clinical trials on natural materials that has always bothered me.  Just imagine taking a relatively simple artificial mixture of ONLY caffeine, chlorogenic acid, theophylline, catechin, huperzine A, ginsenoside Rb1, cocaine, ephedrine, hypericin, ursolic acid, cimetidine, berberine, aspirin, and guar gum, and try to study the effect of caffeine in humans!  This is simply out of control!  This mixture is not even half as complex as a natural material like ginseng or eleuthero.  Yet, can any researchers honestly say they have a controlled study under this kind of situation?  Not unless they are totally ignorant in, or oblivious to, the non-human aspects of their study.  By this I mean the natural materials (“drugs”) they are studying.  Up to this day, many researchers (including pharmaceutical and medical) continue to regard natural materials (be it an herb or herbal extract) which they study, as pure chemicals, knowingly or unknowingly, 21 years after the publication of the infamous study of “ginseng” that resulted in the term “ginseng abuse syndrome!”  In that study, the author considered any commercial product with a label of “ginseng” as ginseng, presumably Asian ginseng (Issue 18)!³  Without at least controlling the natural materials under study, no wonder there are so many controversial research findings.  It is like the researchers have been comparing oranges with apples all these years!  It is no wonder we keep getting conflicting health advises.  Because there are no uniform criteria or standards for evaluating/selecting substances like fibers, coffees, teas, or ginsengs as materials to be studied (Issue 19), one researcher’s results may be positive while another’s negative.  And when these reach the popular press, the results are frequently misinterpreted, exaggerated, suppressed, or manipulated, to suit its own agenda.  The end result is a very confused public, even me, though I am more skeptical than confused!  Take the case of fiber.  The reporter of above article makes it sound like fiber is a single, chemically well-defined drug that is expected to produce a very specific pharmacological effect (hence he refers to it as “magic bullet”) that is supposed to prevent colon cancer.  When 2 recent studies didn’t show such effect, he declared the “magic bullet misses mark.”  But fiber is not a single-chemical drug like aspirin or morphine!  Unless all scientists agree to clearly define what fiber is whenever it is being studied, the results would be different each time, no matter how many times “fiber” is being studied.  The attitude we should assume concerning any kind of clinical trial with natural substances, especially with foods and food ingredients, is to consider any of their findings simply as potentially useful information to add to our collective traditional wisdom or common sense.  They should never be taken as new definitive scientific wisdom, at least not until the scientific world agrees on what they are actually studying when it comes to natural food materials.  For now, like always, moderation is the key to good health.  I don’t know about you, but I continue to eat eggs whenever I want to, though not excessively.  I prefer butter to margarine because I simply have never believed that margarine is better or even good for you, and I don’t eat that much butter anyway.  Regarding fiber, I don’t have any regular diet regimen for that either, though I eat whatever fruits and vegetables that are available to me.  All these plus a little (just a little) guilt feeling that I should eat more of this, or less of that, due to years of subconscious indoctrination by bad science, especially via the popular media. 

(2) D.Q. Haney, “Why Healthy-Eating Rules Change So Much – Another Magic Bullet Misses Mark,” The Record, New Jersey, April 22, 2000, p. A-9;  (3) R.K. Siegel, “Ginseng Abuse Syndrome,” JAMA, 241: 1614-1615(1979).

“… While both the natural and synthetic versions of a chemical contain impurities, these impurities are quite different. In a genuinely natural chemical from a traditional herb or food, one that is extracted without involving reactions with other synthetic chemicals, the impurities present have been safely ingested along with this chemical in the herb/food for a long time, often many centuries.  On the other hand, its synthetic version has been produced usually through numerous synthetic steps (chemical reactions), generating many new chemicals as impurities. The chemists try their best to purify the resulting chemical by removing these impurities. Still, there are always traces of these unknown impurities left…”

Have they ever been identified or tested for their toxicities?  Ask the folks who make synthetic “pharmaceutical-grade” drugs, including psilocybin, in coming years. Don’t buy their products unless free of impurities!

#CompassPathway#, #GeorgeGoldsmith#, #EkatrinaMalievskaia#

#Impurities# #contaminants#

From my recent book, “My Life & Rollercoaster Career” pp. 235-236; it was first published in March 1997, 23 yrs ago, in which I already pointed out the problem with ‘modern’ drug therapy and its vicious cycle created by the synthetic drugs’ impurities and contaminants:

“… While both the natural and synthetic versions of a chemical contain impurities, these impurities are quite different. In a genuinely natural chemical from a traditional herb or food, one that is extracted without involving reactions with other synthetic chemicals, the impurities present have been safely ingested along with this chemical in the herb/food for a long time, often many centuries.  On the other hand, its synthetic version has been produced usually through numerous synthetic steps (chemical reactions), generating many new chemicals as impurities. The chemists try their best to purify the resulting chemical by removing these impurities. Still, there are always traces of these unknown impurities left…”

Have they ever been identified or tested for their toxicities?  Ask the folks who make synthetic “pharmaceutical-grade” drugs, including psilocybin, in coming years. Don’t buy their products unless free of impurities!

#CompassPathway#, #GeorgeGoldsmith#, #EkatrinaMalievskaia#

Much of it is in the vicious cycle, governed by greed. This v.c. only benefits its owners & associates, but gives the rest of us more diseases and miseries. I believe it started with our transition from natural medicines to synthetic chemicals in our modern drug era. Synthetics have since been gradually and steadily replacing our tried-and-true traditional natural medicines. During this period of over 100 years, especially the past 80, we have created a massive confusion that somehow led to our v.c. And the twisted mix of faux sciences applied equally to both synthetic and natural therapeutics, with a heavy dose of politics, have finally landed us where we currently are – a largely unresolvable mess. It’s a mix of drugs and supplements entangled in a big glob of not easily identifiable and separable goodies and baddies In my next post, I’ll offer a glimpse of hope for our younger generations with the recently rediscovered world of fungi, esp. psilocybin mushrooms. But much hard work is still ahead. Stay tuned! hashtag#healthcare hashtag#sickcare hashtag#viciouscycle hashtag#greed hashtag#newdiseases hashtag#syntheticdrugs hashtag#natural hashtag#medicines hashtag#therapies hashtag#politics hashtag#confusion hashtag#sciences hashtag#mushrooms hashtag#fungi hashtag#psilocybin hashtag#herbalsupplements