Does drug research need to be refocused? Big money is spent to create drugs from herbs. Is this prudent? - Backtalk

YALE UNIVERSITY RESEARCHers recently figured out how the herb feverfew works. Now drug companies can develop headache medications that act like feverfew. Drugs modeled after plants, like the fungi-inspired antibiotic erythromycin, are common and account for more than $20 billion a year in sales. And the government spent $113 million last year on such research.

In many cases the money is wasted, says herbalist James Duke, Ph.D., a retired USDA botanist in Fulton, Md. That's because the plant can be as effective as the synthetic drug and has fewer side effects. Yet pharmaceutical researchers argue that the drug form is better because it can be standardized and made more potent.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Weider Publications
COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group