Traditional Ayurvedic medicine could face an uncertain future as 93 percent of the wild plants used in the practice are threatened with extinction due to overexploitation, the Times of India reports. […]
Of course, other traditional Asian medicines have been attacked for their use of parts from endangered animals, such as tiger bones and rhino horns, but Ayurveda has so far avoided such criticisms.
Thanks Bill Whitcomb who asks:
Can’t someone start a medical rumor about that would tend to get rid of something we don’t like? Something like, “Annecdotal evidence from many traditional healers points to a terrific increase in male potency achieved by smoking the dried scrotums of Republicans, though this is not supported by any scientific studies to date.”
April 6, 2010 at 1:28 pm
100% of all species are guaranteed to go extinct.
To harvest plants in ways that threaten future harvests is unfortunate and perhaps foolish. To do so out of superstition is worse. But practitioners can go on feeding lead, mercury and arsenic to each other if the plants die out.