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African Plant May
Help Fight Fat
Part II
Some companies have even used the results of Phytopharm’s
clinical tests to market their products.
"This is just straightforward theft. That’s what it is. People are
stealing data, which they haven’t done, they’ve got no proper
understanding of, and sticking on the bottle," says Dixey. "When we
have assayed these materials, they contain between 0.1 and 0.01
percent of the active ingredient claimed. But they use the term
hoodia on the bottle, of course, so they -- does nothing at all."
But Dixey isn’t the only one who’s felt ripped off. The Bushmen
first heard the news about the patent when Phytopharm put out a
press release. Roger Chennells, a lawyer in South Africa who
represents the Bushmen, who are also called “the San,” was appalled.
"The San did not even know about it," says Chennells. "They had
given the information that led directly toward the patent."
The taking of traditional knowledge without compensation is called
“bio-piracy.”
"You have said, and I'm going to quote you, 'that the San felt as if
someone had stolen the family silver,'" says Stahl to Chennells. "So
what did you do?"
"I wouldn't want to go into some of the details as to what kind of
letters were written or what kind of threats were made," says
Chennells. "We engaged them. They had done something wrong, and we
wanted them to acknowledge it."
Chennells was determined to help the Bushmen who, he says, have been
exploited for centuries. First they were pushed aside by black
tribes. Then, when white colonists arrived, they were nearly
annihilated.
"About the turn of the century, there were still hunting parties in
Namibia and in South Africa that allowed farmers to go and kill
Bushmen," says Chennells. "It's well documented."
The Bushmen are still stigmatized in South Africa, and plagued with
high unemployment, little education, and lots of alcoholism. And
now, it seemed they were about to be cut out of a potential windfall
from hoodia. So Chennells threatened to sue the national lab on
their behalf.
"We knew that if it was successful, many, many millions of dollars
would be coming towards the San," says Chennells. "Many, many
millions. They've talked about the market being hundreds and
hundreds of millions in America."
In the end, a settlement was reached. The Bushmen will get a
percentage of the profits -- if there are profits. But that’s a big
if.
The future of hoodia is not yet a sure thing. The project hit a
major snag last year. Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which had teamed
up with Phytopharm, and funded much of the research, dropped out
when making a pill out of the active ingredient seemed beyond reach.
Dixey says it can be made synthetically: "We've made milligrams of
it. But it's very expensive. It's not possible to make it
synthetically in what’s called a scaleable process. So we couldn’t
make a metric ton of it or something that is the sort of quantity
you’d need to actually start doing something about obesity in
thousands of people."
Phytopharm decided to market
hoodia in its natural form, in diet
shakes and bars. That meant it needed the
hoodia plant itself.
But given the obesity epidemic in the United States, it became
obvious that what was needed was a lot of
hoodia - much more than
was growing in the wild in the Kalahari. And so they came here.
60 Minutes visited one of Phytopharm’s
hoodia
plantations in South Africa. They’ll need a lot of these plantations
to meet the expected demand.
Agronomist Simon MacWilliam has a tall order: grow a billion
portions a year of hoodia, within just a couple of years. He
admitted that starting up the plantation has been quite a challenge.
"The problem is we’re dealing with a novel crop. It’s a plant we’ve
taken out of the wild and we’re starting to grow it,' says
MacWilliam. "So we have no experience. So it’s different— diseases
and pests which we have to deal with."
How confident are they that they will be able to grow enough? "We're
very confident of that," he says. "We've got an expansion program
which is going to be 100s of acres. And we'll be able – ready to
meet the demand.
This could be huge, given the obesity epidemic. Phytopharm says it’s
about to announce marketing plans that will have meal-replacement
hoodia products on supermarket shelves by 2008.
MacWilliam says these products are a slightly different species from
the hoodia Stahl tasted in the Kalahari Desert. "It's actually a lot
more bitter than the plant that you tasted," says MacWilliam.
The advantage is this species of
hoodia will grow a lot faster. But
more bitter? How bad could it be? Stahl decided to find out. "Not
good," she says.
Phytopharm says that when its product gets to market, it will be
certified safe and effective. They also promise that it’ll taste
good.
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