Herbal/Vitamin Supplement Industry – Good or Bad?

On some interesting news I read a few months ago, Pfizer’s (a major pharmaceutical company) patent on its impotence drug Viagra has been partially rejected after the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) said it wasn’t different enough from a Chinese herb called yin yang huo (more popularly known as Horny Goat Weed).

It seems an appeals board has upheld a decision that an element, or claim, of the patent for a method of treating male erectile dysfunction didn’t cover a new invention. Interestingly, the patent claim was key to a patent-infringement suit Pfizer had filed in 2002 against another pharma company, Eli Lilly and Co., over its rival Cialis drug. In 2002 Pfizer had filed a lawsuit that accused Eli Lilly of infringing its patent by selling the erectile dysfunction drug Cialis which can give up to 36 hours of duration as compared to only 4 to 6 hours of duration via Viagra. Soon after the suit was filed, Eli Lilly and Bayer (which sells another erectile dysfunction drug named Levitra) requested re-examination of the patent before the USPTO. Of course, this does not mean Viagra is off patent, it just means certain claims were rejected as not patentable.

Well all this erectile dysfunction reading got me thinking about the herbal supplement industry… Clearly there are herbs that have high medicinal value, not only is there Horny Goat Weed (which as we see is used in some pharmaceutical drugs), but there are herbs and plants that have helped form the foundation of the pharmaceutical industry that exists today. Digitalis (extracted from foxglove) was known to stimulate heart muscle and was therefore used to treat various heart conditions. Two common brand drugs are Crystodigin and Lanoxin. Quinine, which was obtained from the barks/roots of a plant a plant from the Cinchona genus, was used to treat malaria. It was the first effective treatment for malaria caused by the protozoan parasite Plasmodium falciparum and was in therapeutic use during the 17th century. It remained the dominant and preferred antimalarial drug until the 1940s when new drugs replaced it; however, it is still used in some cases today.

For treating dysentery, a drug called Ipecacuanha (obtained from the bark/roots of the plant genus Cephaelis) was used. Ipecacuanha was used for many years to induce vomiting mostly if someone accidentally swallowed a poisonous or harmful substance. It has since been mostly replaced in the US by other drugs but can still be found in use around the world. There are plenty of other examples; the list of pharmaceutical drugs that contain plant/herb extracts as the main active ingredient is quite exhaustive. Four US patented brand-name heart drugs containing bark-extracted quinine include Cardioquin, Quinaglute Dura-tabs, Quinidex Extentabs, and Quin-Release. It must be mentioned that today most all drugs are manufactured by direct chemical synthesis but this does not take away from the point that there is definitely much medicinal value in herbs/plants.
So in any case, I have quickly shown that it is futile to say the herb industry is total nonsense as some people claim. Pfizer in the case mentioned above argued that there was no credible evidence that yin yang huo treated erectile dysfunction and that there was no basis for concluding that there was an effective amount of the herb in the drug to treat erectile dysfunction. Pfizer then went on to state that the drug included a mixture of yin yang huo and other things. The judges responded that the treatment contained the purported aphrodisiac ingredient icariin (derived from yin yang huo) and that the prior art disclosed oral administration of the herb in an amount effective to treat erectile dysfunction.

The fact that natural herbs and plants can be used to derive new medicines to fight disease should be embraced by all pharma/biotech companies. As I have already shown, the pharma industry owes its very foundation and success to this fact. Now the more pressing concern is the danger of the unregulated vitamin and herb supplement industry. It is important to remember that although the pharma/biotech industry is regulated and watched heavily by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration), there is no such scrutiny and regulation for the multi-billion herb and vitamin supplement industry.

As you can imagine, this has schemers and hustlers salivating over the thought of making a quick profit. The Internet is littered with horror stories of people duped out of hundreds of thousands of dollars or worse yet people who’ve suffered negative health consequences with some cases even causing death. Take the case of Dr. Christine Daniel who promised her patients the improbable – the chance to cure cancer through a herbal treatment. She apparently raked in $1.1 million over three years. Being a minister as well as a doctor she convinced patients to stop their medically prescribed cancer treatment and buy her “treatment” for upwards of $5,000 with some reports of people losing as much as $13,000. The saddest part is that some patients died from the actions of this scam artist. I am perplexed it took three years to catch this scam. Just do an Internet search and you can find all kinds of supplements with ridiculous claims made through carefully worded legal jargon.

In all, I’m not one to say go with all natural remedies or don’t take chances with any kind of herbal supplements. I think like everything there must be a balance and a lot of research before you decide to put anything into your body. With pharmaceutical drugs, it’s nice to know the FDA is out there doing monitoring. At the same time, I don’t want to take a prescription drug for every issue I have. And if I’m ever diagnosed with cancer, I probably won’t take a mixture of herbs and spices mixed with cabbage juice that someone off the Internet states will cure all diseases. It’s all about balance and knowledge – and perhaps circumstances.