Protection of Indian herbal lore

March 23, 2006

As many of you know, the Pharmaceutical companies scour the world for

rare herbal remedies and then, to the great disgust of the indigenous

people from whom they steal the secrets, trademark and register the

plant and or the use.

There was a case a short while ago, when they tried,I believe to do

this with the Neem Tree.

India fought back and won. But this cost them millions of dollars. To

protect their own right to use the trees as they had done for

generations.

Recently, they also had to protect Tumeric from the same pillagers.

To further ensure that no other traditional herb is stolen in this

way, India is creating a massive data base that it is publishing on

the Net, of all its traditional herbs.

This is to be found at the TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE DATA LIBRARY and is

being funded by the goverment. Students are working round the clock to

ensure that ALL the uses for EVERY herb in India is published on the

Net. This will mean that the pharmaceutical companies cannot then

claim it is a use that THEY - alone - have found.

The benefit of this is that we ALL can learn what has traditionally

only been available to the Indian healers.

There are several sites.

One is at

http://nmpb.nic.in/prioritisedmedicinalplants.htm

and the other is at

http://tkdl.res.in/

At the second site, click on Information Resources and then on to Raw

Materials Herbarium and Museum. There are over 10,000 herbs already

Apparently, other countries are also planning to do the same to

protect their own Herbal Lore from becoming a Pharmaceutical patent.

Penny Khaled

http://tinyurl.com/bfnyd

http://www.geocities.com/pennykhaled75

http://www.organicnutrition.co.uk

March 23, 2006

Thanks for the info and great links. I find it sad that India has to do this

to protect its self but happy that it is sharing this resource.

Carol

March 23, 2006

I was doing some research on haldi (turmeric). I buy some oils from an Indian

supplier here in No. Cal. We were talking about Sandalwood and its ability to

color when he mentioned haldi. I told him that I used it to color soap and he

started telling me of all its medicinal uses. I had no idea how much usefullnes

it had, other than for a natural colorant. Of course, later on I couldn't

remember everything he said so I went online to check it out more. I was also

reading about the patent issue, and how India fought for its traditions and won.

I'm thrilled that this info is now more widely available. I'm really interested

in Aryvedic medicine, and we don't discuss it much here because the knowledge

base is in India.

I'm lucky that we have many Indian stores in Sacramento, so I've been

patronizing them and the Chinese herbalists to learn more. I've found them to

be very willing to share their knowledge if they're sure that your interest is

sincere. There is a whole world of healing going on outside of Western medicine

and knowledge that it makes my head spin. These healing methods have been

working for thousands of years, so I personally don't need its usage to be

validated by the West. Obviously the West has come around to a certain extent,

or they wouldn't have tried to " steal " these traditions. Tam

March 23, 2006

Hey Tam!

Isn't it cool how being open to new experiences helps you grow as a person? I

think there are so many cultures that we as Westerners can learn from. When I

was in high school (a freshman) there was a young Japanese woman that was an

exchange student. I was living in a small town in Oklahoma and the maj. of the

pop. was white. She spoke very little English, and most of the kids in school

weren't quite sure what to do with her. The first time I saw her was in a all

girls aerobic class. I smiled back at her, patted the spot next to me, and we

became fast friends. )

Because Japan was so crowded, she had spent very little time around dogs. I

still remember the first time she came over to my house and saw my full grown

Collie, Lady. LOL She was the cutest damn thing you have ever seen. When she

was there, my youngest sister who was maybe five or four, had a really bad

stomach ache. My mom had given her every medicine she could find, and she was

still just so miserable. Hiromi pulled out her bag, and out came all of these

herbs LOL She brewed some kind of tea, and offered it to my baby sister. I'm

still amazed that my sister even took it, because she was so young, and because

it was pretty foreign to her. but I will never forget how sweet Hiromi looked

trying to help my baby sister, and ten minutes later, my sister was no longer in

pain. My sister really took a huge liking to Hiromi, but then, everyone pretty

much loved her once they spent any time with her at all. Looking back, I

realized I learned so much from her. And the funny

thing is, when i went off to college, my roommate never showed up. so i had a

huge dormroom all to myself. It was very lonely. All of the other girls were

spending time with their new friends, and there was me. LOL Well, the R.A. had

been given an exchange student from Japan, and she was terrified of the RA. LOL

so one morning the R.A., Angela, rapps on my dorm room. And all 6'2 " 300 pounds

of her filled the doorway. She went on to explain that she just wasn't a

morning person, that Motoko was scared of her, and could she please just come

live with me? LOL I looked at her face, and she was just so adorable. She

wasn't an inch over 4'9 " I swear. So she ended up being my roommate and again,

I learned so many things from her. By the end of our first semester together,

she had me speaking Japanese. When she pulled out her English/Japanese

dictionary, the first word she looked up to show me, was the english word

" beautiful " and then " friend. " I really miss those two )

Melissa

Tamara Shortt <stuff7321 wrote:

I was doing some research on haldi (turmeric). I buy some oils from an

Indian supplier here in No. Cal. We were talking about Sandalwood and its

ability to color when he mentioned haldi. I told him that I used it to color

soap and he started telling me of all its medicinal uses. I had no idea how

much usefullnes it had, other than for a natural colorant. Of course, later on

I couldn't remember everything he said so I went online to check it out more. I

was also reading about the patent issue, and how India fought for its traditions

and won. I'm thrilled that this info is now more widely available. I'm really

interested in Aryvedic medicine, and we don't discuss it much here because the

knowledge base is in India.