Botanical/Herbal Medicines
terrasig | May 26, 2010Regular readers know that I hold equivocal views of the broad area of dietary supplements, particularly botanical supplements. On one hand, I have seen some great new compounds come from the systematic investigation of herbal and fungal concoctions to the point that 25% of prescription drugs are derived from natural products. On the other hand, some corners of the dietary supplement industry are little more than turn-of-the-last-century snake oil operations, with offenses so egregious that even their own trade associations try to distance themselves from those who adulterate, mislabel, and…
terrasig | February 19, 2010In our last post, we discussed a recent USPTO ruling that rejected a claim of the Pfizer patent on the erectile dysfunction drug, sildenafil (Viagra®), to a novel oral treatment for the disorder. The patent appeals panel ruled that the existence of horny goat weed, a traditional Chinese medicine used orally for impotence, was grounds for rejection of the claim.
Frequent commenter daedalus4u pulled out US Patent #6,469,012 (filed Mar 4 1996, issued Oct 22 2002) wherein the relevant claim 24 reads:
A method of treating erectile dysfunction in a male human, comprising orally administering to a…
terrasig | February 18, 2010Reuters and Bloomberg reported earlier this week on an ongoing patent battle (read: pissing match) between Pfizer and Eli Lilly & Co. relating to their erectile dysfunction drugs Viagra and Cialis, respectively.
A US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) appeals committee has ruled that an element of Pfizer's patent on sildenafil, the active chemical in Viagra, is invalid because the drug is insufficiently different from a traditional Chinese medicine called Yin Yang Huo or horny goat weed.
At issue is Pfizer's claim to a method for treating male erectile dysfunction. The patent appeals…
terrasig | December 14, 2009Update: New ScienceBlogs colleague, Sharon Astyk at Casaubon's Book, brought my attention to the fact that this local southern Colorado story has been picked up by CNN.
Although I originally wrote this post rather tongue-in-cheek, some scientific evidence has accumulated for the benefits of cannabis in neuropathic pain, cancer pain and nausea, as well as muscle spasticity in multiple sclerosis. For what appears to be a subset of individuals, marijuana is superior to prescription drugs in terms of efficacy and side effect profile. Equivocal results with a standardized cannabis extract…
terrasig | December 7, 2009Alexa Ray Joel, the daughter of Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley, was hospitalized Saturday with what I originally thought was an overdose of some type of sedative.
However, today's Newsday and MTV are reporting that the family is calling this an overdose of a homeopathic medication called Traumeel. Traumeel is manufacturer by an Albuquerque-based company called Heel USA, a company founded by a German physician in the 1920s.
If Traumeel is truly homeopathic, there is absolutely no way this product could have caused Joel's hospitalization.
If you are new to our blog, you may not know the…
terrasig | December 4, 2009Earlier this week, I saw one of the best treatments of a misinterpreted story that has me thinking about how all news outlets should report in vitro laboratory studies.
Only thing is that it didn't come from a news outlet.
It came instead from a brainwashing site run by those medical socialist types - I am, of course, speaking of the UK National Health Service and their excellent patient education website, NHS Choices.
You may recall reading in the popular dead-tree or online press that investigators from New York Medical College in Valhalla published in British Journal of Urology…
terrasig | November 28, 2009As we mentioned earlier this week, a brouhaha has erupted north of the border (or just a bit east for our Detroit-area colleagues) whereby graduates of Canada's two naturopathy schools may be given drug prescribing rights by the Ontario legislature. Editor-in-chief of the Skeptic North blog, Steve Thoms, put up this detailed background in "Fake Doctors with Real Drugs," at the JREF Swift blog:
Bill 179 was introduced in the spring of this year as a way of expanding scope-of-practice for health care professionals in Ontario, including (but not limited to) nurses, midwives, pharmacists and…
terrasig | November 25, 2009
By most metrics, those of us at Terra Sig World Headquarters are liberals. Nevertheless, we often enjoy reading conservative writer, attorney, and American Enterprise Institute fellow, David Frum. Perhaps I have a soft spot for him because he's Canadian and he also writes for my favorite print newsmagazine, The Week.
Well, Frum chose this week to write, "Herbal remedies need real scrutiny," at his FrumForum and the post was subsequently published as a special commentary at CNN.com. The latter version has accumulated about ten times as many comments. The thesis of his essay is that the…
terrasig | November 6, 2009
I should probably create a new blogpost category just for erectile dysfunction dietary supplements adulterated with authentic or synthetic analogs of prescription phosphodiesterase-5 (PDE5) inhibitors (e.g., Viagra, Cialis).
However, FDA has already created a page for this earlier this year after dozens of companies have been identified as putting real drugs into their erectile dysfunction products.
Do the brains behind these companies not realize that FDA is now monitoring every erectile dysfunction supplement for all manner of PDE5 inhibitors?
Apparently not:
For Immediate Release: Nov. 5…
terrasig | October 31, 2009This post appeared here originally on 31 October 2007
Have you ever wondered, perhaps on 31 October, why witches are depicted as riding brooms?
The answer is alluded to by Karmen Franklin at Chaotic Utopia in her post as to why witches need to know their plant biology.
The excerpts I'm about to give you come from a superb and accessible pharmacology text entitled, "Murder, Magic, and Medicine," by John Mann, host of the BBC Radio 4 series by the same name.
Witches
"Double, double toil and trouble
Fire burn and cauldron bubble" - Macbeth IV, i
Hallucinogenic compounds called tropane alkaloids…
terrasig | October 19, 2009Rebecca Skloot, journalist, University of Memphis writing professor, and author of the upcoming book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (pre-order here), just brought to my attention this commentary by Dr Pieter Cohen in the New England Journal of Medicine entitled, "American Roulette -- Contaminated Dietary Supplements."
In the commentary, Dr Cohen remarks upon the epidemic of adulteration of herbal and non-herbal dietary supplements with undeclared prescription drugs or unapproved drugs:
In July 2009, the FDA expanded its alert to include 75 tainted weight-loss products that contain…
terrasig | August 31, 2009
The Boulder County coroner announced today that the July death of a Boulder teen was indeed due to opioid intoxication from preparation of a poppy pod tea.
Jeffrey Joseph Bohan, 19, of Boulder, was found dead in his friend's Boulder home about 6 p.m. July 21 after drinking poppy-pod tea the night before with his brother, according to Boulder police.
Investigators suspected the Fairview High graduate, who was going to Colorado State University, died from the psychoactive tea, which is brewed from the plant that produces opium. But they couldn't be sure until the Coroner's Office confirmed…
terrasig | August 16, 2009
Artemisinin is a natural product isolated from the leaves of the annual wormwood, Artemisia annua. Used originally in Chinese herbal medicine, the pure compound is employed in Africa as an inexpensive antimalarial drug. In April, 2009, the multinational pharmaceutical company Novartis received FDA approval for a combination drug called Coartem®, comprised of the semi-synthetic artemisinin analog, artemether, and another novel antimalarial, lumefantrine.
An herbal preparation of artemesinin has recently been associated with a single case of hepatic injury as reported in this week's issue of…
terrasig | July 26, 2009In the United States, herbal and non-herbal dietary supplements can be sold without any assurance of safety or efficacy as a result of a hastily-passed, late-night, final-session piece of legislation put forth by Sen Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). (Aside: Utah has several large dietary supplement manufacturers.) This piece of legislation is named the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994, or DSHEA. A FAQ for consumers is provided by the US Food and Drug Administration here.
An unusual aspect of the law is that supplement manufacturers can make a variety of wellness or structure-function…
terrasig | June 14, 2009Salvia divinorum (Salvia, Magic Mint) is a plant used for entheogenic purposes by the Mazatec people of Mexico. A relative of the common garden plant "scarlet sage" (Salvia splendens), S. divinorum contains several hallucinogens that include salvinorin A, the first non-nitrogenous agonist known for kappa opioid receptors (KOR).
I had known of salvinorin A since a highly-cited 2002 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper by Bryan Roth, Richard Rothman and colleagues (full text here). At that time, I had read several anecdotal reports (that I cannot locate now) that the…
terrasig | May 1, 2009FDA and the New York Times are reporting today 23 cases of adverse reactions to various Hydroxycut weight loss supplements. (FDA Consumer PDF here).
Above and beyond whether the stuff actually helps with weight loss, it is clear that the products contain some compound(s) that cause idiosyncratic cases of liver damage.
According to the law governing dietary supplements, the F.D.A. is empowered to act only in cases when it identifies a harmful or adulterated product that is already on sale.
"Part of the problem as you know is that F.D.A. looks at dietary supplements from a post-market…
terrasig | April 20, 2009While I was all caught up today with thinking about the 95th anniversary of the Ludlow Massacre and the 10th anniversary of the Columbine High School shootings, I was reminded of some lighthearted goings-on in Colorado today that take away some of the gloom on this Monday. (The Ludlow post is getting great traffic, by the way, but my historical posts on tragedies fail to generate much commenting for some odd reason.).
My good friends at Denver's Westword independent weekly paper tweeted me last week with this headline on from their blog, The Latest Word:
CU Chancellor, obviously high, sends…
terrasig | April 13, 2009An interesting question arose the other day when we discussed the Key West acupuncturist who was diverting prescription drugs for personal use as well as in her practice. While we are not certain that the defendant put the cited muscle relaxants and anxiolytics in remedies doled out at her practice, we doubt that the demographic she targeted would be too impressed if she were to hand out prescription drugs.
This scenario led our scientific and blogging colleague, DrugMonkey, to ask how common it might be for alternative practitioners to dope their herbs with prescription drugs exhibiting…
terrasig | March 21, 2009After writing this post, I came across Alex's obituary and guestbook on Legacy.com. By all accounts, Alex was a great kid - loved and admired by many - an accomplished hockey player and musician with a love for the mountains. This could have been you or I, or worse, one of our own children.
Breaking my heart this morning is news from Boulder that last month's death of 20-year-old CU student, Alexander McGuiggan, was from consumption of "opium tea."
Police department spokeswoman Sarah Huntley said investigators believe McGuiggan and others had acquired poppy plants -- which are available…
terrasig | March 18, 2009I just had a chance to check in on a triad of posts by Prof Janet Stemwedel at Adventures in Ethics and Science (1, 2, 3) on the ethical issues of the conduct of studies, particularly clinical trials, supported by the US NIH's National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM).
For background, NCCAM was originally established for political, not scientific reasons, as the NIH Office of Alternative Medicine in October 1991. It received a token budget of $2 million at the time. They still only get $120-ish million; modest by NIH standards as compared, say, with the 2007 NCI…