Biopiracy Versus One-world Medicine–from Colonial Relicts to Global Collaborative Concepts
Date
2019Author
Thomas, Efferth
Mita, Banerjee
Abu-Darwish, Mohammad S
Abdelfatah, Sara
Madeleine, Böckers
Bhakta-Guha, Dipita
Vanderlan, Bolzani
Daak, Salah
Ömür, Lutfiye D
Mona, Dawood
Efferth, Monika
El-Seedi, Hesham R.
Fischer, Nicolas
.Greten, Henry J
Sami, Hamdoun
Hong, Chunlan
Markus, Horneber
Onat, Kadioglu
Khalid, Hassan E.
Khalid, Sami A.
Kuete, Victor
Nuha, Mahmoud
José, Marin
Armelle, Mbaveng
Midiwo, Jacob
Nakagawa, Hiroshi
Janine, N
Olipa, Ngassapa
Ochwang'i, Dominic
Omosa, Leonida K.
Ooko, Edna A.
Nadire, Özenver
Paramasivan, Poornima
Romero, Marta R
Saeed, Mohamed E.M
Ligia, Salgueiro
Ean-Jeong, Seo
Ge, Yan
Zahir, Yasin
Saeed, Elfatih M.
Paul, Norbert W.
Type
ArticleLanguage
enMetadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Background
Practices of biopiracy to use genetic resources and indigenous knowledge by Western companies without benefit-sharing of those, who generated the traditional knowledge, can be understood as form of neocolonialism.
Hypothesis
The One-World Medicine concept attempts to merge the best of traditional medicine from developing countries and conventional Western medicine for the sake of patients around the globe.
Study design
Based on literature searches in several databases, a concept paper has been written. Legislative initiatives of the United Nations culminated in the Nagoya protocol aim to protect traditional knowledge and regulate benefit-sharing with indigenous communities. The European community adopted the Nagoya protocol, and the corresponding regulations will be implemented into national legislation among the member states. Despite pleasing progress, infrastructural problems of the health care systems in developing countries still remain. Current approaches to secure primary health care offer only fragmentary solutions at best. Conventional medicine from industrialized countries cannot be afforded by the impoverished population in the Third World. Confronted with exploding costs, even health systems in Western countries are endangered to burst. Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is popular among the general public in industrialized countries, although the efficacy is not sufficiently proven according to the standards of evidence-based medicine. CAM is often available without prescription as over-the-counter products with non-calculated risks concerning erroneous self-medication and safety/toxicity issues. The concept of integrative medicine attempts to combine holistic CAM approaches with evidence-based principles of conventional medicine.
Conclusion
To realize the concept of One-World Medicine, a number of standards have to be set to assure safety, efficacy and applicability of traditional medicine, e.g. sustainable production and quality control of herbal products, performance of placebo-controlled, double-blind, randomized clinical trials, phytovigilance, as well as education of health professionals and patients.
URI
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0944711318301909http://hdl.handle.net/11295/106446
Citation
Efferth, Thomas, et al. "Biopiracy versus One-World Medicine–From Colonial Relicts to Global Collaborative Concepts." Phytomedicine (2018).Publisher
University of Nairobi
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United StatesUsage Rights
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/Collections
The following license files are associated with this item:
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States
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