Ancient Tribal Remedy Could Be Next Big Drug to Fight Obesity
By Matthew McGarry
Part II
Promised a Cut in Profits
A tribe of hunter-gatherers
whose 20,000-year-old culture was recently close to extinction, the
San people could now have found the ultimate survival weapon in
their reliance on
hoodia.
Pfizer has promised them a cut of the royalties.
But the chance to share in the
proceeds of a revolutionary new diet drug didn't come without a
fight.
Roger Chennells, a lawyer
who in 1999 helped the San win back a large portion of their
ancestral homelands in South Africa, decided to challenge the drug
firms and the South African research institute that originally took
out the
hoodia
patent in 1996.
After a prolonged battle an
agreement was finally reached earlier this year. "There was a
certain amount of mistrust because it was a significant amount of
money and each side had a lot to lose," said Chennells. "But after a
fight, both parties were satisfied."
Now the San will help to cultivate
the plant and should the drug come to market, their impoverished
community of an estimated 100,000 people scattered across the
Kalahari Desert stands to gain millions of dollars annually, plus
jobs and scholarships.
Dreams
of Riches
But first the drug must be proven
to work and then it must be declared safe to use by government
medical boards.
Crawhall said the mood is one of
anxious anticipation. "There are lots of promises, and lots of
excitement, but people have seen promises before and they don't
always deliver, so there's also a bit of caution," he said. "People
can't help but wondering if this is really going to happen or not."
In the meantime, the needy San
people continue to hang on to life in the harsh and unforgiving
Kalahari Desert, comforted by dreams of future riches and how they
will spend all that money. |
