Cancer Drug Tree Endangered
Taxus contorta, a Yew tree species growing in the Himalayas is now considered endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. It has been overharvested for the production of the anti-cancer drug Taxol.
The harvesting of the bark kills the trees, but it is possible to extract Taxol from clippings, so harvesting, if properly controlled, can be less detrimental to the plants, said Craig Hilton-Taylor, and IUCN manager. (Source: The Guardian)
Other species of Yew trees can also be used to make Taxol. Even eighteen years ago people knew Yew trees were going to be consumed at a rapid rate to make Taxol, but who would side with trees over people sick with cancer that needed treatment?
About six 100-year-old yew trees must be sacrificed to treat each cancer patient. But the scraggly, slow-growing Pacific yew, once common in old-growth forests from Northern California through British Columbia, has fallen victim to widespread clear-cutting, making it scarce, reported Stanford News back in 1991.
Apparently Taxol has been produced in a lab setting, but that kind of production has not been found feasible commercially, presumably due to excessive costs. Another prohibitively high cost method of production has been conversion of baccatin III or 10-deacethylbaccatinIII found in Taxus needles. Additionally, researchers at Tufts University last year said they had found a way to produce the precursors to Taxol in the lab, but still are at a preliminary stage and need further exploration.
Taxol was approved by the FDA in 1984 for clinical trials, and by 1993 Br! istol-My ers Squibb was allowed to begin selling it to healthcare facilities for cancer treatment. The compound was discovered in 1967 when the chemists Monroe E. Wall and Mansukh C. Wani isolated it.
Image Credit: Public Domain
Related Links
People and Lizards Endangered by Superstition
Another Rhino Population Goes Extinct
