I'm going to have to reply in sections- > Dan Minette <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > From: "Deborah Harrell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > But _discovering_ that drug can be in the course > >of basic or esoteric research, or even > seredipitously. > It can be, The existance of this type of discovery > is not in dispute. The > prevelance is what I consider important. For > example, if 5% of drugs are > discovered in nature and 5% are discovered duing > basic research, with 90% > discovered by various drug companies, then the > effects of proposed policies > would be quite different from a situation where drug > discovery was > distributed 1/3, 1/3, 1/3%. I appreciate the work > you went to finding your > example, but that example doesn't address this > question. Indeed, I'd guess > that if, say, 20% of the drugs came from searches of > naturally existing > compounds, then the vauge wording in the report > would be replaced by more precise wording. I will look harder for firm numbers. Just for kicks, I did a search on WebMD for "drugs most important" -- there actually was an article: http://my.webmd.com/content/article/93/102341.htm What are the most important medicines ever made? WebMD asked experts to nominate drugs for membership in this exclusive club. Some got in by a unanimous vote. Others were endorsed by some but blackballed by others... (last paragraph) "I hope that people appreciate that the source for new drugs has come, and will continue to come, from a variety of sources," he says. "You have to have support for basic science, or the pipeline will dry up. And there has to be applied work for the phenomenon to continue as it has. All estates of science have an important role. The universities have a crucial role, as do pharmaceutical companies and government, too, to provide support for these organizations that support discovery." > > Naturally-occuring chemical compounds were a large > > source of many 'new' drugs in past decades (think > > antibiotics esp.), and in oncology is still very > > important: See the list in the article; penicillin, aspirin and steroids/hormones are among them. Also, both India and China are revving up research into traditional Ayurvedic (sp?) and Chinese herbal medicine; some of these are very promising for conditions from hypertension to mental illness. (Of course, some will be useless, but that is no different from Western research.) > This may be a good point to raise my second point. > I'm not sure what you > mean by discovering...and I'm starting to think that > this is very much at > the core of how we see things differently. The > nature of experimental > research varies with the maturity of a scientific > field. <snip charm case for brevity> > In the middle of the 20th century, I think this word > worked fairly well > with medicine too. It was the age of "medical > miricles." A few pills > could beat diseases that had been plauging humanity > for millenia. My mom > is very much a product of that time: she expects > doctors to provide pills > to fix her every ill and has a hard time accepting > that not eating properly > and drinking enough fluid is the cause of most of > her ills. Simply by > looking with a bit of care, numerous drugs were > found. > > As a field matures, the "low hanging fruit" is > fairly well picked over, and > a new regiem begins. New features are not really > discovered in the same > sense as they were in the infancy of the field. > Now, development is much more guided. Yet just today I read about a compound found in green tea that inhibits the formation of beta-amyloid (associated with Alzheimer's) in specially-bred mice, and another in cruciferous vegetables that kills human lung cancer cells. I think we yet have many, many chemicals to find and tweak to our purposes. Errr, must go to next lesson- Debbi Had Her Oreo Dosage For The Year This Week Maru (ooh, wicked but luuuv them hydrogenated oils) :) __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005 http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
