Drug Resistance

Drug resistance is one of the greatest threats to human civilization. HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, pneumonia and all sorts of parasites are gaining resistance to last-resort drugs. Increasing travel and trade mean drug-resistance is a worldwide catastrophe waiting to happen.

Got a drug-resistant infection? Try a herb instead!

Could we, though, have snookered ourselves with a reliance on synthetic drugs to treat disease? The story of malaria teaches a lesson that is largely ignored.

For hundreds of years quinine, a natural compound derived from the bark of a South American tree, successfully treated cases of malaria worldwide.

Then in the twentieth century the pharmaceutical industry got involved. Synthetic derivatives of quinine were invented. Hailed for their clinical purity and potency, these wonder drugs claimed to provide a more reliable treatment of malaria rather than relying on the vagaries of nature.

The bubble didn’t take long to burst. Within 10 years resistance to synthetic quinine drugs was noted. Within 40 years it was widespread.

Growing resistance to drugs by parasites and pathogens is looming as a medical catastrophe.

Next came artemisinin. Science isolated this compound from sweet wormwood, a plant that Chinese herbalists had been using for nearly 2,000 years to treat malaria. It is highly active on the most difficult cases of malaria.

Not content to simply use the herb though, drug companies quickly developed a synthetic form of artemisinin. Once again they had improved on nature, or so they thought.

But by 2011 the WHO was already issuing alarming warnings about resistance by malaria to the “new artemisinin compounds”.

Parasites were sidestepping drugs once again.

Has anyone asked these questions, though:

How did these herbs successfully treat malaria for thousands of years before science “discovered” them?

Why didn’t the parasites develop resistance to the herbs throughout all of this time?

Is it just coincidence that once we start synthesizing these natural compounds into drugs that parasites start developing resistance to them?

Nature is not encumbered with the restrictions of modern scientific "quality" standards.

I discussed this issue with an audience during a lecture many years ago. One attendee raised her hand and asked why this was so – why is it that parasites don’t develop resistance to herbs but they do to drugs.

Now science doesn’t even court this question, but experienced herbalists know what’s going on. So did the one who was present at my lecture. She proceeded to explain the situation better than I ever could.

Each season as plants grow the natural chemicals in the herbs are slightly different from previous harvest. Yes, herbs are constantly changing, side-stepping the defences of parasites and not allowing them to develop a resistance.

This natural process horrifies Western science. If a compound is even slightly different from what is documented, then a scientific approach dictates that it is unacceptable. Absolute uniformity is required to satisfy the 'scientific method', both for quality standards and also to meet patent requirements. Western medicine, by synthesizing drugs out of plant chemicals to ensure they are “pure, potent and consistent” actually provides the parasites an ideal opportunity to develop resistance.

Unfortunately for the health of all humankind relying on drugs to fight infection, uniformity creates predictability. And parasites and pathogens, so-called 'simple life', are not stupid.

And so plants are smarter than human science. They do exactly what is necessary to protect us from infection. By the time a parasite or pathogen has adapted to side-step the protective measures in herbs, the plant has already moved on. These are the safeguards built into herbs to stop parasites getting the upper hand.

Next time you contract an infection keep that in mind!