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BY HERBERT VEGO
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IT’S VERY ironic that while our country is reputedly rich in herbal medicine, we have failed to exploit plants that our rural folks already tap for their curative value. Otherwise, we might have already developed a cure for dengue and might have saved the P3.5 billion spent for Dengvaxia vaccine.
There was a time when Calinog, Iloilo mayor Alex Centena, interviewed by Danny Fajardo on the radio show Reklamo Publiko, strongly recommended papaya leaf extract on the premise that many of his dengue-suffering constituents had recovered by drinking it. An effective way to do it is to pound two raw papaya leaves and squeeze the juice over strainer and cup.
Incidentally, for articles, case studies and video presentations on papaya leaf, please surf the internet. Start with ranchodelicioso.com/papaya-leaf-cure-for-dengue.
On the same forum on another day, a doctor begged to disagree, “No study proving their capacity to replenish blood platelets in dengue patients has been done yet.”
Well, indeed, why has the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) not initiated a study?
I am tempted to believe the rumor that it’s not just because FDA is prejudicial against herbal medicine; it’s more because its corrupt officials have allowed the agency to be a tool of multinational drug companies.
I wonder how much a local drug manufacturer spent while applying for the approval of the herb lagundi as medicine.
What if certain applications are approved just because the applicants have the money to grease FDA palms?
There was a time when a cardiologist prescribed an expensive, FDA-approved anti-cholesterol drug to me after an x-ray showed that my aorta was “atherosclerotic.” I followed his advice.
I panicked after only a few days of taking the drug. I could hardly flex my arms due to excruciating muscle pain.
I consulted the internet to read blogs on anti-cholesterol “statin” drugs. My God, I was not alone. The blogs told similar cases of patients suffering from the same side effect. Conversely, I could find no testimonial of anybody healed of excess cholesterol.
By chance, I saw the book Stop Inflammation Now in a bookstore. I bought it. Authored by American physician Dr. Richard Fleming, it prescribes fruits and vegetables instead of expensive but ineffective anti-cholesterol drugs.
And so I say: Let’s stop these greedy drug companies from scaring us so they could rob us of our hard-earned money. If we only care to look back, we would discover that book author Dr. Fleming was merely echoing the Greek father of medicine, Hippocrates (460-357 BC), who first said, “Let your food be your medicine.”
Hippocrates as a physician prescribed natural remedies to prevent and treat diseases. His approach was both therapeutic and experimental, since there were no sophisticated laboratories yet to help him diagnose patients and evaluate outcome of treatment. He would wait and see. Whenever a patient recovered, he would further observe him to validate nutritional therapy, herbal medicine and other experimental natural remedies.
Today, we all know that vegetables and fruits strengthen the body’s built-in immune system, giving it the capacity to fight disease-causing bacteria and virus.
Incidentally, the lowly and cheap malunggay has already been proven to be a natural cure for diabetes. But the FDA has restricted malunggay capsule to being food supplement.
This corner deplores the lukewarm implementation of the Traditional Alternative Medicine Act (TAMA) of 1998 that is supposed to encourage drug manufacturers to use cheap native herbs as active components of their products.
Fortunately, a few local drug companies have gambled in synthesizing a few indigenous plants into over-the-counter medicines, such as lagundi, anti-cough; tsaang gubat, antispasmodic; akapulco, antifungal; and ampalaya, anti-diabetic. (hvego31@gmail.com/PN)
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