By GABRIEL S. MABUTAS
April 8, 2011, 5:50pm
MANILA, Philippines -- The Department of Science and Technology (DoST) is taking steps to centralize government-backed efforts to discover herbal and marine medicines.
Dr. Antonio Ligsay, chief of the research development management division of the DoST’s Philippine Council for Health Research Development (PCHRD), said they are in the initial stage of developing a plan on how to centralize researches that have to do with the discovery of herbal and marine medicines.
He said one of their priorities in the next six years is the discovery and development of herbal and marine medicines.
Ligsay said that by October they will present the plan to the DoST secretary for approval and implementation. He said it would be comprehensively drafted by the AIM.
He said they are talking with the University of the Philippines, University of Santo Tomas and De La Salle University about sharing their database with his agency to sharpen focus on the discovery and development of herbal and marine medicines.
Ligsay said their effort is intended to lower the cost of herbal and marine medicines and eventually increase the number of natural medicines developed in the country.
Dr. Edwin Bien, a medical expert who strongly advocates the use of plant medicine, has been lamenting the failure of most of his colleagues in the medical profession to observe the law that promotes the use of traditional alternative medicines.
Bien noted that RA 8423 hardly gets support from medical practitioners although the number of plants it requires to prescribe was quite small compared to the number of plants that are proven to have medicinal value.
He said it was only recently that he learned that although the country has already more than 200 available plant medicines, the number required for prescription has never gone beyond 10.
He said it is ironic that most doctors do not promote plant medicines when the law has been in existence for 20 years.
“Why is it that although Philippines is the only country in world with a law promoting plant medicines, and also the only country where doctors do not prescribe them?” Bien said.
He noted that although they do not have the same law, doctors in other Asian countries like Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand prescribe plant medicines. Even in European countries, plant medicines are being recognized and promoted, Bien said.
Bien said most medicines being prescribed do not cure, but merely offer temporary relief.
“But when you do give these plants, it would improve immune system. (Those taking it) would have a better batting average than if they only have the synthetic medicine in the body,” he said.
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