Beyond shamanism: The relevance of African traditional medicine in global health policy

Medicine and Law

Volumn 26, Issue 2, 2007, Pages 191-201

  Aginam, Obijiofor ^a,b  

^a CARLETON UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

^b WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION   (Switzerland)

Author keywords

Alternative and complementary medicine; Biopiracy; Ethnomedicine; Ethnopharmacology; Global health policy; Globalization; Intellectual property; Medical pluralism; Traditional medicine; World health organization

Indexed keywords

CATHARANTHUS ROSEUS EXTRACT; CINCHONA EXTRACT; QUININE; VINBLASTINE; VINCRISTINE;

AFRICA; AFRICAN MEDICINE; ARTICLE; BARLEY; CANCER; CULTURAL FACTOR; DRUG EFFICACY; DRUG LEGISLATION; ETHNOPHARMACOLOGY; FORECASTING; HEALTH CARE COST; HEALTH CARE DELIVERY; HEALTH CARE POLICY; HERBAL MEDICINE; HOLISTIC CARE; HUMAN; LEGAL ASPECT; MAGIC; MALARIA; PATENT; SPIRITUAL HEALING; TRADITIONAL MEDICINE; WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION;

EID: 34447280830     PISSN: 07231393     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (57)

1. Ethnomedicine is defined as "the study of different ways in which people of various cultures perceive and cope with illness, including making a diagnosis and obtaining therapy", see H. Fabrega, "The Need for an Ethnomedical Science", (1975) Vol. 189 Science No.4207 at 969.
2. The World Health Organization defines traditional medicine as including "diverse health practices, approaches, knowledge and beliefs incorporating plant, animal, and/or mineral based medicines, spiritual therapies, manual techniques and exercises applied singularly or in combination to maintain well-being, as well as to treat, diagnose or prevent illness". See WHO, WHO Traditional Medicine Strategy 2002-2005 (Geneva: WHO, 2002) at 7.
3. See also WHO, "WHO General Guidelines for Methodologies on Research and Evaluation of Traditional Medicine" (Geneva: WHO/EDM/ TRM, 2000) (defining traditional medicine as the "sum total of the knowledge, skills, and practices based on the theories, beliefs and experiences, indigenous to different cultures, whether explicable or not, used in the maintenance of health as well as in the prevention, diagnosis, improvement or treatment of physical and mental illnesses"). The terms complementary, alternative and non-conventional medicine are used interchangeably with traditional medicine in many countries.
4. For a discussion of complementary and alternative medicine specifically see David Eisenberg, "Exploring Complementary and Alternative Medicine", The Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Lectures, 2001 (Washington, D.C., Institute of Medicine).
5. from time immemorial, man has valued the plant kingdom and animal kingdom as sources of bioactive products .... Some of these traditional plant and animal substances are purely magical. They have no relevant pharmacological (i.e. drug-like) effects, which can be produced in a laboratory setting. Many substances have a measurable pharmacological action, however, which corresponds well to their traditional application. The scientific discipline, which explores this pharmacological basis of traditional drugs and poisons is called ethnopharmacology. Its focus ranges from the first-hand observation of native drug practices (by early travellers and anthropologists) through the identification of crude ingredients and their constituents (by botanists, zoologists and chemists) to die evaluation of wanted and unwanted drug effects (by pharmacologists and toxicologists)".
6. Maurice M. Iwu, "Introduction: Therapeutic Agents from Ethnomedicine", in M.M. Iwu & J. C. Wootton, eds., Advances in Phytomedicine, Volume 1: Ethnomedicine and Drug Discovery (Amsetrdam: Elsevier, 2002) 1
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid at 3
9. See F. Staugard, Traditional Medicine in Botswana (Gaborone: Ipelegeng Publishers, 1985) 5
10. U. Wassermann, "Traditional Medicine and the Law" (1984) 18 Journal of World Trade Law 155 (asserting that "Europeans and North Americans are often inclined to think of traditional medicine only in terms of witchcraft, spiritism, laying on of hands, or with a slightly less condescending attitude of homeopathy and such more embracing systems as India's ayurveda or Moslem Unani medicine")
11. Staugard, Ibid at 5.
12. See generally, A. Mire, "The Genealogy of Witchcraft: Colonialism and Modem Science", in Z. Magubane, ed., Postmodernism, Postcoloniality, and African Studies (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, Inc, 2005) 81.
13. See Isaac Sindiga, "African Ethnomedicine and Other Medical Systems", in I. Sindiga, et al., (eds.), Traditional Medicine in Africa (Nairobi: East African Publishers, 1995) 16.
14. De Smet, Herbs, Health and Healers: Africa as Ethnophannacological Treasury, note 3 at 11.
15. The 1972 World Health Assembly Resolution WHA29.72 noted the huge manpower reserve constituted by traditional medical practitioners. The 1977 World Health Assembly Resolution WHA30.49 called on Member States to explore the utilization of traditional medicine in their health care systems. The 1978 the World Health Assembly Resolution WHA31.33 noted the medicinal value of medicinal plants in the health systems of many developing countries.
16. For a discourse of the challenges of the legal protection of traditional medicine, See Richard Wilder, "Protection of Traditional Medicine", Commission on Macroeconomics and Health, Working Paper Series No.4, July 2001
17. Ursula Wassermann, "Traditional Medicine and the Law", supra at note 7
18. O. Akerele, "Me Best of Both Worlds: Bringing Traditional Medicine up to Date" (1987) Vol. 24 No.2 Social Science & Medicine 117
19. Chioma Obijiofor, "Integrating African Ethnomedicine into primary Healthcare: A Framework for South-eastem Nigeria", in M. Iwu & J. Wootton, eds., supra note 4 pp71-80
20. P. Omonzejelc, "Current Ethical and Other Problems in the Practice of African Traditional Medicine" (2003) 22 Medicine and Law 29-38
21. David P. Fidler "Neither Science nor Shamans: Globalization of Markets and Health in the Developing World" (1999) Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 191-224. I have explored the challenges of integrating traditional medical therapies into the global malaria control strategy.
22. See Obijiofor Aginam, "From the Core to the Peripheries: Multilateral Governance of Malaria in a Multi-Cultural World" (2002) Vol. 3 No. 1 Chicago Journal of International Law 87.
23. For a recent global strategy on the interaction of traditional, alternative and complementary medicine and the formal health care system, See WHO, "WHO Traditional Medicine Strategy 2002-2005" (Geneva: WHO, 2002).
24. O. Akerele, supra, note 12.
25. For a study of ethno-medicine across various societies in the developing world, see K. Appiah-Kubi, Man Cures, God Heals: Religion and Medical Practice Among the Akans of Ghana (USA: Allanheld & Osmun & Co, 1981)
26. C. Leslie & A Young, Paths to Asian Medical Knowledge (Berkeley/Los Angeles/Oxford: University of California Press, 1992)
27. T. Dummer, Tibetan Medicine and Other Holistic Health-Care Systems (London/New York: Routledge, 1988)
28. H.M Said, Medicine in China. (Karachi: Hanidard Academy, 1965)
29. G.E. Simpson, Yoruba Religion and Aledicine in Ibadan, (Ibadan: Ibadan University Press, 1980)
30. Edith Brown Weiss, In Fairness to Future Generations: International Law, Common Patrimony, and Intergenerational Equity (New York: The United Nations University/Transnational Publishers, 1989) 266.
31. On this topic, see generally, Maurice M. Iwu & Jacquline C. Wootton, Advances in PhytoMedicine Vol. 1, note 4
32. Ikechi Mgbeoji, "Patents and Traditional Knowledge of the Uses of Plants: Is a Communal Patent Regime Part of the Solution to the Scourge of Bio Piracy?" (2001) Vol. 9 Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 163-186
33. David Phillips, Health and Health Care in the Third World (New York: Youngman, 1990) 75 defines medical pluralism as "the existence and use of a wide range of sources of medical care, traditional and modem, static and evolving".
34. J.M Janzen, The Questfor Therapy: Medical Pluralism in Lower Zaire (Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1978)
35. Maurice M. Iwu, "Preface", in Peter A.G.M De Smet, Herbs, Health and Healers: Aftica as Ethnopharmacological Treasury note 3 at 9
36. J. S Mbiti, Aftican Religions and Philosophy (London: Heinemann, 1969) 169.
37. D.R Phillips, note 16 p81
38. In Africa, according to Mbiti, the individual's needs, rights, joys and sorrows are woven into a social tapestry that denies singular individuality. Traditional medical practitioners symbolize the hopes of society; hopes of good health, protection and security from evil forces, prosperity and good fortune, and ritual cleansing when harm or impurities have been contracted. SeeMbiti, op cit. pp 141 & 171.
39. On this theme generally, see P.H. Coetzee & A.P.J. Roux, The African Philosophy Reader (London: Routledge, 1998)
40. On this theme, focusing on malaria drugs, see Obijiofor Aginam, "From the Core to the Peripheries: Multilateral Governance of Malaria in a Multi-Cultural World" (2002) Vol. 3 No. I Chicago Journal of International Law 87-102
41. See generally lwu & Wootton, note 4
42. Naomi Roht-Arriaza, "Of Seeds and Shamans: The Appropriation of the Scientific and Technical Knowledge of Indigenous and Local Communities" (1996) 17 Michigan J. of In't Law 919 at 921.
43. For an insightful discussion of bio-piracy, see Ikechi Mgbeoji, "Patents and Traditional Knowledge of the Uses of Plants: Is Communal Patent Regime Part of the Solution to the Scourge of Bio Piracy?" (2001) 9 Indiana J of Global Legal Studies 163
44. Ikechi Mgbeoji, Global Biopiracy: Patents, Plants and Indigenous Knowledge (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2006)
45. Roht-Arriaza, "Of Seeds and Shamns", Ibid.
46. Ibid.
47. Ibid.
48. Ibid.
49. See the solutions proffered by Mgbeoji, Global Biopiracy, supra, note 25
50. For some works that summarize this argument, see Carlos Correa, Integrating Public Health Concerns into Patent Legislation in Developing Countries (Geneva: South Centre, 2000)
51. I. Mgbeoji, Global Biopiracy, supra note 25
52. Eugenio Da Costa E. Silva, "The Protection of Intellectual Property for Local and Indigenous Communities (1995) 17 European Intellectual Property Review 546
53. Allan S. Gutterman, "The North-South Debate Regarding the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights" (1993) 23 Wake Forest Law Review 89
54. Richard Wilder, "Protection of Traditional Medicine", Commission on Macroeconomics and Health, CMH Working Paper Series, Paper No. WG 4: 4, July 2001 p21.
55. Carlos Correa, Integrating Public Health Concerns into Patent Legislation in Developing Countries, supra note 31 p28
56. Wilder, supra note 32
57. For a discussion of the African Model Law in the context of legal protection of genetic resources in Africa, see K. Nnadozie, et al, eds., Ajrican Perspectives on Genetic Resources: A Handbook on Laws, Policies and Institutions (Washington, DC: Environmental Law Institute, 2003). This study covers the legal framework in 12 African countries: Cameroun, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Madagascar, Nigeria, Senegal, The Seychelles, South Africa, Uganda, and Zambia.