Medicinal Uses of Rainforest Plants

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Medicinal Uses of Rainforest Plants

It is estimated that nearly half of the world's estimated 10 million species of plants, animals, and micro-organisms will be destroyed or severely threatened over the next quarter century due to rainforest deforestation. Rainforest plants are complex chemical storehouses that contain many undiscovered compounds which are a vital part for the growth and development of the world. Therefore, we can only gain access and knowledge to these materials if we study and conserve the species that contain them. Rainforests currently provide sources for one-fourth of today's medicines, and 70 percent of the plants found have anti-cancer properties. However, they are only found in the rainforest. The rainforest and its immense undiscovered biodiversity holds the key to unlocking tomorrow's cures for today's devastating diseases.

In 1983, there were no US pharmaceutical manufacturers involved in research programs to discover new drugs or cures from plants. However, today over 100 pharmaceutical companies and several branches of the US government, including Abbott, Merck, Bristol-Meyers, Squibb and the National Cancer Institute are actively engaged in plant-based research projects for possible drugs and cures for viruses, infections, cancer, and AIDS. However, I am presenting the preservation of the world=s rainforests by showing how much more valuable plants are standing rather than cut down. Indeed, it is a race against a clock whose every tick means another acre of charred forest. Yet, in a competitive market, whoever presents new evidence in chemical bioprospecting will secure health and a piece of scientific immortality.

We are now losing the earth=s greatest biologic...

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...avin, and Hilary French Sate of the World. New York: W. W. Norton Company, 1999.

Caufield, Catherine. In the Rainforest. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. 1994.

Emerich, Monica. AWhat You Should Know About Rainforest Remedies.@ Preserving Mayan Medicine. March 1998, Galileo. Online. Dialog. 1 Oct. 2003.

Gay, Kathlyn. Rainforests of the World. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, Inc., 1999.

Henahan, Sean. ARainforest Medicines.@ Newsmaker Interviews. (1996): 6 pages. Online Internet. 1 Oct. 2003. Available

Jenkins, Mark. AThe Secret Garden.@ Men=s Health. Oct. 1997, vol.12: 142. Galileo.Online. Dialog. 25 Sept. 2003. Available

Meyers, Norman. Rainforests. Emmaus: Rodale Press, 1993.

Newman, Arnold. Tropical Rainforest. New York: Edison Sadd Editions, 2000.

Taylor, Leslie. Herbal Secrets of the Rainforest. Rocklin: Prima Publishing, 1998.

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