[MPWG] NY Times Article: Could Ancient Remedies Hold the Answer to the looming Antibiotics Crisis?

[Lindsey Riibe]

And this:
http://amr-review.org/sites/default/files/160525_Final%20paper_with%20cover.pdf

TACKLING DRUG-RESISTANT INFECTIONS GLOBALLY: FINAL REPORT AND
RECOMMENDATIONS
THE REVIEW ON ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANCE

On Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 10:59 AM, Lindsey Riibe <riibe.lindsey at gmail.com>
wrote:

> NY Times Story on Ethnobotany
> <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/magazine/could-ancient-remedies-hold-the-answer-to-the-looming-antibiotics-crisis.html?ribbon-ad-idx=4&rref=science&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Science&pgtype=article>:
>  *Could Ancient Remedies Hold the Answer to the looming Antibiotics
> Crisis? One researcher thinks the drugs of the future might come from the
> past: botanical treatments long overlooked by Western medicine.*
>
> This is an informative story on the roll of ethnobotany in combating
> antibiotic resistance.
> Dr. Cassandra Quave believes that inhibitors may be the solution to
> antibiotic resistance by cutting down bacteria's most dangerous machinery
> without killing them. The story follows her on a botanical expedition.
>
> Here's some information from the story I found particularly interesting
> and well written (I especially like the idea of plants as nature's chemical
> wizards!):
>
> "No single strategy is likely to be sufficient, but ethnobotany offers a
> few distinct advantages. Instead of relying on random screenings of living
> creatures — an arbitrary scoop of soil or seawater — it is the only
> strategy that benefits from a pre-made guide to some of nature’s most
> potent drugs, honed by thousands of years of trial and error in traditional
> medicine. And as far as organic drug factories go, it’s difficult to beat
> the complexity and ingenuity of plants. Plants are nature’s chemical
> wizards."
>
> "Botanical medicine, Quave learned, not only predates civilization — it is
> older than humanity itself. Many animals appear to self-medicate with
> plants: In Panama, members of the raccoon family known as coatis rub minty
> tree resin through their fur to deter fleas, ticks and lice, and some great
> apes and monkeys swallow mildly toxic leaves seemingly to fight
> infestations of parasitic worms. Our earliest human ancestors continued
> such traditions, and until relatively recently, plants were our primary
> source of medicine."
>
> "the dominance of modern Western medicine was overwriting vast stores of
> knowledge about powerful tonics hidden in surrounding ecosystems. "
>
> "As of 2003, at least 25 percent of modern medicines were derived from
> plants, yet only a tiny fraction of the estimated more than 50,000
> medicinal plants used around the globe have been studied in the lab."
>
>
>
> Lindsey Riibe
> Bureau of Land Management Plant Conservation Program
> Plant Conservation Alliance
> <http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/prog/more/fish__wildlife_and/plants/pca.htm>
>
>


-- 
Lindsey Riibe
Bureau of Land Management Plant Conservation Program
Plant Conservation Alliance
<http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/prog/more/fish__wildlife_and/plants/pca.htm>
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