During a dinner conversation on my recent trip to Australia, one of the guests enquired about my line of work. After I mentioned that I am in pharmaceutical research, he professed his view that Big Pharma is “ignoring too many of the traditional medicines in favor of totally synthetic chemicals. Chemicals that are completely foreign to one’s body and inferior to nature’s own remedies”. It’s a sentiment that I hear all too often from non-scientists, providing me with an opportunity to set the record straight.

My guess is that part of the confusion comes from two sources:

• A synthetic chemical is somehow different from a nature-derived one, and
• traditional treatments originating from natural sources are most likely healthier than a synthetic chemical.

As to the first notion, your body couldn’t tell the difference between, say, Vitamin A from carrots vs. synthetic Vitamin A. Why? It’s the same molecule, the same darn thing. If anything, the synthetic Vitamin A has better quality because it is free from byproducts contained in the vegetable. The second idea posits that nature produces healthier medicinal drugs. Although there is tremendous value in traditional medicines developed over thousands of years, the lack of stringent quality controls has justly curtailed their use in the industrialized world. Concepts such as batch-to-batch consistency and a defined list of active ingredients are usually not associated with herbal concoctions, and as such, the end-user is taking his/her chances. In my view, traditional medicines taken out of their cultural context are dangerous indeed, much like illegal street drugs.

In a letter entitled Organic Rip-off in the December 19th issue of Chemical and Engineering News, Philip Sweetser of Hyde Park/VT takes aim at misconceptions about cancer-causing chemicals, something that plugs right into the previous discussion on natural vs. synthetic chemicals.

“The public has been brainwashed into believing that all synthetic chemicals are “bad” and are probable carcinogens. In reality, there is no difference between synthetic chemicals and natural substances when tested in the standard animal cancer test. Nearly half of all chemicals, whether natural or synthetic, test as carcinogens. This strongly suggests that the standard animal cancer tests are completely unreliable.”

“The amount of synthetic pesticide residue in plant foods is insignificant when compared with natural pesticides produced by the plants themselves. Of all dietary pesticides, 99.9% are natural toxins produced by the plants to defend themselves against fungi and animal predators.”

“Bruce Ames, professor of biology at the University of California, Berkeley, points out that Americans are focused on synthetic chemicals that may cause cancer in humans, even at levels of parts per quintillion, while many of these same people are unaware that there are more than 1,000 natural chemicals in a cup of coffee. Only 22 of these have been tested in the standard animal cancer test, and 17 showed up as carcinogens. Thus, there are more cancer-causing chemicals in a single cup of coffee than you are likely to get from synthetic pesticides in a year. Ames says: “I don’t want to scare people away from drinking coffee. The problem isn’t the coffee - it is the high-dose animal tests.”

“The organic food industry is not only robbing the public’s wallet but, because of the exorbitant prices of organic foods, depriving many people of having adequate amounts of fruits and vegetables. The end result may well be increasing one’s risk for cancer by reducing fruits and vegetables in the diet. The reduced exposure to synthetic chemicals is insignificant.”