Do not put too much value on conventional medicines.
About 80% of the population of the developing countries still use traditional medicines for their health care. The rational use of traditional medicines in primary health care should be based on the Guidelines for the Assessment of Herbal Medicines as developed by the World Health Organization (WHO). The protection of intellectual property on traditional medicines should also be based on the guidelines for the protection of intellectual property on traditional medicines to be developed by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The knowledge of traditional medicines hidden and lost should be researched and the loss of natural resources used as traditional medicines should be prevented. As a new emerging field in ethnopharmacology, treatment guidelines and evidence-based evaluation guidelines for ethnoergogenics, and protection guidelines of intellectual property for ethnoergogenics should be developed and put into practice according to guidelines of the WHO and WIPO, respectively.
Kim
Hack-Seang
HS
College of Pharmacy, Chungbuk National University, Cheongju 361-763, Republic of Korea. hskim1355@yahoo.com
D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D020834:Ethnopharmacology / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D018973:Intellectual Property; D008519:Medicine, Traditional; D011320:Primary Health Care; D014944:World Health Organization