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Breaking news from clinical trials with Artemisia plants A team of medical doctors in RDCongo, Jerome Munyangi and Michel Idumbo, have run randomized clinical trials on a large scale in the Maniema province with the participation of some 1000 malaria infected patients. The trials were run in conformity with the WHO procedures and compared Artemisia annua and Artemisia afra with ACTs (Coartem and ASAQ). For all the parameters tested herbal treatment was significantly better than ACTs: faster clearance for fever and parasitemia, absence of parasites on day 28 for 99.5% of the Artemisia treatments and 79.5% only for the ACT treatments. A total absence of side effects was evident for the treatments with the plants, but for the 498 patients treated with ACTs, 210 suffered from diarrhea, and/or nausea, pruritus, hypoglycemia etc. The efficiency was equivalent for Artemisia annua and Artemisia afra. More important even is the observation for the total absence of gametocytes after 7 days treatment with the herb. A tremendous hope for malaria eradication. The results have been communicated to the local health authorities, and to the Ministries of Health and Research in the RDCongo who were supportive of these trials. The draft of a paper is almost ready and will be submitted to a peer reviewed scientific journal. The financial support for the trials comes from the association MoreforLess in Paris. This is not the only clinical trial run in 2015 with Artemisia annua aqueous infusions. In Benin the University of Abomey, together with the Universities of Louvain and of Liege, run a large scale trial with Artemisia annua grown in Benin. The trial involved 130 malaria infected patients. Fever clearance was evident after 48 hours and parasitemia decreased by 70% already on the first day, and remained 100 % absent on days 14 and 28. No side effects were noticed. The research team from Benin strongly recommends for African countries to replace the expensive and now often ineffective ACTs by Artemisia annua tea (H Zime-Diawara et al., Int J Biol Chem Sci 2015, 9-2, 692-702). These results confirm results obtained by the association IFBV-Belherb and her partners in many small scale trials in several African countries over the last 6 years. Therapeutic efficiency always was > 95% and prophylaxy was noticed and documented. The abstracts or peer reviewed papers of all these trials are available on request. Jérôme Munyangi, Michel Idumbo, Lucile Cornet-Vernet, Pierre Lutgen More extraordinary results from Artemisia annua clinical trials Pierre Lutgen's picture Submitted by Pierre Lutgen on January 9, 2016 - 11:16 Seeing the positive results from clinical trials in RDCongo and Benin and the involvement of the local health authorities, Yves Saint-Hillier, a French medical doctor sent us a detailed report on similar trials he run in Mali more than 3 years ago. He never disclosed these results because he was afraid that Bigpharma and WHO would interfer. Indeed in 2012 WHO issued a document which prohibits the use of Artemisia annua for the treatment of malaria (WHO Position Statement, June 2012). Our partner wanted to avoid embarrassment and conflict for the local health authorities and aggressive press releases from those who run the ACT business. Our partner, Dr Saint-Hillier worked with capsules containing powdered leaves from the French Artemisia annua genotype with a content of 0.1 % artemisinin only. A total of 40 000 capsules containing one gram was administered, to adults, children, but also to neonates and pregnant women. The therapeutic effect of the capsules against fever and other clinical signs of malaria is always very fast. After the rectal application of 500 mg capsules to 100 neonates, sometimes 3 capsules per day, no negative secondary effect was noticed neither for neonates nor pregnant women. The birth weight was increasing to > 3kg and no fatality was noticed after the treatment. In the case of children the absenteeism at school was drastically decreased according to the teachers. Patients suffering from schistosomiasis and other intestinal diseases were also treated with capsules and the preliminary results were positive. More details on the procedures and results are available on request. Artemisia annua plantations have been started in these villages. Yves Saint-Hillier and Pierre Lutgen reply Artemisia and the BigpharmaWHO lobby Submitted by Irene Teis on January 9, 2016 - 17:32 Wouldn’t it be time to talk openly about other clinical trials which have been run in Africa by courageous medical doctors, but who did not dare to publish them in scientific journals because they were running the risk to lose their job or funding or even worse. This is the case for Emilien Fouda in Cameroon, Adelaide Agostinho In Mozambique, Romain Dangbame in Benin, Ibrahima Diop in Senegal, Mamadou Darboe in the Gambia, Constant Tchandema in Katanga with Artemisia afra, Ingo Vicens in Burundi, Elke Steinacher in Senegal, Dr Veronique Chabusiku in Kinshasa, Mechthild Keller and Hannelore Klabes with Artemisia afra in Tanzania, Gebeyaw Tiruneh in Ethiopia, Ahmed Hassanali in Kenya, Dr Felicitas Roelofsen in India, Lucy Kangethe in Kenya, Fondation Rosa Alfieri in Senegal, Mathias Daoudou in Cameroon. Some results have been published in peer reviewed papers. Michel Onimus on the positive effect of Artemisia annua during surgery (M Onimus et al., Med Aromat Plants 2013, 2:125), Patrick Ogwang on prophylaxy (P Ogwang et al., Brit J Pharmac Res. 2011, 1, 124-132 and in Trop J Pharmac Res. 2012, 13, 445-453) and Omar Gueye on ex vivo trials (O Gueye et al., Afr J Bioch Res. 2013, 7, 107-113) and those presented by Rosine Chougouo from Cameroon at the MIM conference at Nairobi in October 2009. The extraordinary results of the large scale, randomized, double blind trials in Maniema by the team of Dr Jerôme Munyangi confirm all these preliminary, partial results and leave little doubt: herbal treatment with Artemisia annua and Artemisia afra is superior to treatment with the ACTs Coartem or Coarsucam. The South is going to win this battle against the North and save its children from a lucrative genocide reply Wake up ! Submitted by Lucile Cornet-Vernet (not verified) on January 9, 2016 - 19:30 WHO should have done this trial a long time ago...Daily Artemisia herbal tea save lives for nothing, no money or at least not. Who get interest by carrying on medecine aigainst Malaria which create drug resistance and cost hundreds of millions dollars ? When this criminal hypocrisy will end ? Wake up everybody ! Artemisia annua and afra Herbal tea work much better than ACT ! Artemisia afra has NO artemisinin and cure malaria ... Yes it does and this trial prove it ! We have to change our mind : Herbal tea can cure ... Wake up ! reply Conference on Artemisia clinical trial results: veto by ACTlobby Pierre Lutgen's picture Submitted by Pierre Lutgen on January 9, 2016 - 19:42 Our partners who run the successfull clinical trials with Artemisia tea in Maniema were invited to present these results in a public conference in RDCongo. The conference was confronted with opposition and lobbying by Bigpharma. The conference finally took place under military escort. A month before, during the trials in Maniema one of the medical doctors who run the trials had to be hospitalized. An obvious attempt had been made to kill him with poison. We admire the courage of these young African doctors. A team of 7 African universities is behind them, a team of 3 universities in Southafrica, several universities and medical associations in Europe and thousands of Africans who have seen that Artemisia herbal treatment saved their lives at no cost. We had suffered a similar prohibition in Burundi. The local association ALUMA and the association IFBV-BELHERB from Europe had organized a conference on the Malaria day of April 25. 2014. The conference was canceled by the local health authorities under influence from the Bigpharma lobby, on the day before the event ! We all ask Bigpharma to stop these ridiculous manoeuvers. Or is WHO, their watchdog, repeating the unfamous attempt of the Vatican to eliminate Galileo. In those dark ages it was only hampering the wealth of the Medicis. In our civilized century this greed threatens the live of millions of children. Pierre Lutgen reply Artemisia and malaria Submitted by Patrice Bouygues (not verified) on January 9, 2016 - 22:03 Since Michel Onimus trials in RCA we used successfully Artemisia Annua since many years to prevent post-operative malaria during our surgical missions in Tchad. Artemisia Annua is efficient against Malaria ! reply Artemisia and malaria Submitted by Patrice Bouygues (not verified) on January 9, 2016 - 22:10 Since Michel Onimus trials in RCA we used successfully Artemisia Annua since many years to prevent post-operative malaria during our surgical missions in Tchad. Artemisia Annua is efficient against Malaria ! reply What a shame Submitted by Guy Mergeai (not verified) on January 10, 2016 - 08:16 The trial criticized by the health authorities of the DRC was conducted according to a very robust scientific methodology and its results confirm those obtained less formally by many field workers in other parts of the world. Science is based on conducting experiments not on dogma. The fact that the tea of Artemisia afra is as effective as that of Artemisia annua proves that artemisinin is not essential to treat malaria and that other active ingredients present in numererous species of Artemisisa play a role. Pretending that Artemisia tea can promote the development of resistance to ACT is thus totally fallacious. The safety of Artemisia teas being documented for many years, nothing should prevent their widespread use to save thousands of lives. For all this, what is happening in Kinshasa is outrageous. Guy Mergeai, PhD reply Request for change in WHO’s anti-Artemisia position Submitted by Michel ONIMUS (not verified) on January 10, 2016 - 09:15 It seems that we are facing a chronic very unfair opposition from official administrations about the use of artemisia annua tea for treatment and prophylaxis of malaria. WHO stresses the importance of large-scale randomized objective trials for evaluation of the effectiveness of tea preparation compared to ACT. Actually a very recent clinical double blinded randomized trial is just under publication. It was conducted in RDC and included a very large group of 1000 patients. This is probably the larger study available to-day evaluating the artemisia annua tea in malaria. The results definitely confirm that the tea is more effective than ACT and this trial brings very strong arguments for developping the use of artemisia annua. WHO should modify its statement and no further prohibit use of Artemisia annua tea as an effective (and moreover unexpensive and easily available) way of treatment of malaria. reply J'ACCUSE !! Submitted by Philippe ANDRIEUX (not verified) on January 10, 2016 - 10:57 J'accuse !!
Nous médecins au service de la santé des peuples nous accusons BIGPHARM de manipulations politico-financières au détriment de l'être humain et à l'encontre de toute éthique. reply The veto of WHO and ITG Pierre Lutgen's picture Submitted by Pierre Lutgen on January 10, 2016 - 14:42 At this stage it must be clearly documented that with our African partners we had made all possible efforts to obtain the agreement for clinical trials with Artemisia annua. On January 2012 we made our way to Canossa, i.e, the WHO offices at Geneva. The meeting was attended by Andrea Bosman, Peter Olumese, Pascal Ringwald, Amy Barette, Charlotte Rasmussen, Marian Warsame, Silvia Schwarte, Lise Riopel from WHO, by Jean-Jacques Schul, Yanick Arlabosse-Titz and Blaise Guiakora from IDAY and Pierre Lutgen from IFBV-BELHERB. We presented a power point with all the encouraging results already obtained in small scale trials in Kenya, Uganda, Senegal, Cameroon, The Gambia. We left the meeting full of hope but a month later we received a written document with a formal prohibition any further clinical trials with Artemisia annua. On January 15, 2012 we had already had a meeting at the Institute for Tropical Diseases (ITG) in Antwerp with Jef Van den Ende. We did not expect very much from that particular meeting knowing that in a Belgian law (29.7.1997) Artemisia annua is classified as dangerous herb. In 2008 Dr P Wery from the ITG had violently opposed our work with Artemisia annua in Africa in the magazine Rotary Contact. And in 2010 the Fonds National de la Recherche in Luxembourg had rejected the funding of a Ph D thesis grant for Omar Gueye in Senegal. The opinion of a Belgian expert had killed the project: “This kind of project could never be published in a scientific journal. Supporting such a project is certainly NOT something that will give Luxembourg a good reputation in science”. Pierre Lutgen reply Soutien aux auteurs de l'étude en RDC Submitted by Dominique Chardonnet (not verified) on January 11, 2016 - 08:37 'Ce monde et ses dirigeants ne cessent de m'inquiéter. Leur combat contre l'objectivité et les règles qu'ils nous imposent tourne à la bêtise et nous conduit furtivement à la tragédie. Des disciples de la déontologie médicale sont aujourd'hui menacés simplement parce que les résultats de leurs études contredisent les intérêts de la puissante organisation des laboratoires pharmaceutiques soutenue elle-même par une espèce d'oligarchie internationale réunie au sein de l'Organisation Mondiale de la Santé. Les résultats des travaux réalisés par des chercheurs accrédités au Congo confirment les avantages d'une phytothérapie efficace contre le paludisme en regard des inconvénients d'une bi-thérapie (ACT) qui n'est pas formellement remise en cause par cette étude puisque la-dite bi-thérapie permet aussi la guérison de ce terrible fléau. Comment comprendre alors que des voix s'élèvent, que des censures s'imposent, que des manoeuvres d'intimidation se forment autour des auteurs d'une étude qui ne révèle finalement que de possibles complémentarités? Que les adeptes des ACT se rassurent et acceptent l'existence d'une thérapie simple produisant le même effet, à savoir la guérison. Que l'on puisse s'en prendre aujourd'hui aux démonstrateurs de cette réalité est purement intolérable et indigne du genre humain. Les Autorités quelles qu'elles soient doivent s'insurger (pour le moins autant que le soussigné) et réagir avec fermeté contre toute forme d'intimidation et d'obscurantisme scientifique. S'il devait se produire quoi que ce soit de fâcheux pour les auteurs de cette étude au seul motif de ses résultats, je ne me le pardonnerais jamais et je m'engagerais personnellement, le cas échéant, à saisir les instances internationales afin de rétablir le droit et réclamer justice.
Dominique Chardonnet
reply When medical trials may lead to inquisitorial trial procedure... Submitted by ROCHDI Fatima (not verified) on January 14, 2016 - 07:11 What is happening in Kinshasa regarding the verified opportunity to save lives at low cost and the choice made to make money and protect the private interrests of the corporation is a shame. I support the research team and condamn the position taken by the authorities in RDC and by WHO. reply Artemisia annua : Soutien au Dr. Jérôme et son équipe à Maniema, Submitted by Séverin Tchibozo (not verified) on January 14, 2016 - 08:36 Artemisia annua : Soutien au Dr. Jérôme et son équipe à Maniema, RDC La nature nous a fait don de plusieurs espèces de plantes pour nous nourrir, nous soigner…depuis des millénaires. Les vertus médicinales de l’Artemisia sont connues depuis si longtemps qu'on en a retrouvé des écrits sur un papyrus égyptien remontant à 1600 avant J.C et dans un texte de l’Ancien Testament. Elle était connue et recommandée par les Celtes ; les Arabes l'utilisaient et les médecins de l'Antiquité la considéraient comme la panacée. Mais il y a des hommes qui ne pensent qu’à amasser de l’argent, sur le dos des pauvres, en les forçant à utiliser des remèdes chimiques au lieu des herbes médicinales offertes gratuitement par la nature. Nous sommes surpris et tristes d'apprendre que sous l’influence de lobbys extérieurs les auteurs des études sur Artemisia annua en RDC ne soient pas bien écoutés par les autorités de Maniema et la représentation nationale de l’OMS. Séverin Tchibozo, CRGB, Godomey, BENIN reply WHO Africa: closed doors, no dialogue Submitted by emile schmitz (not verified) on January 16, 2016 - 19:55 In 2013 Frank Van der Kooy published a review paper in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology entitled 'The complexity of medicinal plants: The traditional Artemisia annua formulation, current status and future perspectives' He compared the positions of those who promote the herbal medicine with those who sell ACTs . He invited partners of both approaches to join the discussion. In his acknowledgements he states: we would like to thank Dr. Pierre Lutgen from IFBV-BELHERB and Dr. Martin Hirt from Anamed for comments on this manuscript. Unfortunately no comments were received from the WHO African office. Unfortunately everybody agrees that science is asking questions and confronting opinions and findings. Emile Schmitz reply Bigpharma WHO retaliates: fired! Submitted by Irene Teis on January 18, 2016 - 14:51 We just received the following message from Jerome Munyangi who run with Michel Idumbo the successfull clinical trials Artemisia vs ACT in Maniema: Bonjour , Juste vous informer que Michel vient d'être suspendu de son poste de médecin directeur. L'inévitable est arrivé. Jerome These two young African doctors knew the risks they were taking. We admire them. The future of Africa is in their hands, not in those of the subservient medical staff in Geneva. reply Honte aux criminels Submitted by Paul NYEMB NTOOGUE (not verified) on January 19, 2016 - 19:07 Je suis vraiment très amusés par ce que vivent des chercheurs comme Jerome Munyangi et Michel Idumbo qui, avec d'autres dynamiques, se sont engagés à combattre le paludisme en Afrique de manière efficiente et sure. Qu'ils aient des ennuis de la part d'une certaine maffia qui tient encore les populations africaines sous le joug des produits de firmes pharmaceutiques occidentales n'est qu'une abjection. Ces firmes qui font pressions sur nos autorités ne constatent elles donc pas que l'Afrique change depuis peu et les populations qui connaissent déjà la vérité sur bien de complots contre elles, n'ignorent plus aujourd'hui l'importance des plantes médicinales comme l'artémisia annua? Nous leur conseillons d'arrêter les pressions sur ces chercheurs dont les travaux sont plutôt connus des populations et salués par plusieurs communautés et dans bien de pays. Les révolution ne seront pas toujours à votre avantages reply malaria et la guerre de l'ombre Submitted by Marc Vanacker (not verified) on January 22, 2016 - 13:29 Suite à un début de publication d'une grande étude randomisée concernant le traitement du paludisme par les plantes (Artémisia annua et Artémisia afra) sur une grande échelle (1000 patients) dans la province de Maniema en RDC; étude menée par Jérôme MUNYANGI chercheur en biologie moléculaire et docteur Michel IDUMBO responsable sanitaire de la province de Maniema, soutenus par un comité d'école de santé publique. Depuis ce début de publication la guerre de l'ombre a commencé.
Comment interpréter ses manipulations politiques alors que l'étude est en conformité avec les procédures de l'OMS comparant Artémisia annua et Artémisia afra avec les ACT (Coartem et ASAQ) Tous les paramètres des traitements à base des plantes artémisia annua et afra étaient significativement supérieurs aux ACT:
Ceci est un grand espoir pour l'éradication du paludisme. Un essai identique a été réalisé au Bénin à l'université d'Abomey en collaboration avec les universités de Louvain et de Liège (Belgique); étude sur 130 patients avec des résultats similaires. Le Bénin recommande fortement aux pays africains de remplacer les ACT par la tisane d'artémisia. Ces études confirment les résultats obtenus par l'association IFBV - Belherb (Luxembourg) et ses partenaires dans de nombreux essais à petite échelle dans plusieurs pays africains au cours des 6 dernières années. L'efficacité a toujours était supérieure à 95% et l'efficacité de la prophylaxie a été remarquée et documentée. Comment interpréter cette négations des faits par l'OMS sinon par une manipulation politico financière de Bigpharma. Les résistances aux ACT existent depuis 2008 en Asie et aussi dans 10 pays africains du Sud Est ainsi que dans les grands ports africains
Comment ne pas s'insurger face à ce gangstérisme pharmaceutique dont l'avidité financière menace la vie de millions d'enfants.
Cette puissante organisation des laboratoires pharmaceutique est soutenue par une oligarchie internationale réunie au sein de l'OMS Organisation Mondiale de la Santé. Philippe, médecin à l'île d'Yeu |
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Pierre Lutgen
January 5, 2016 - 15:30 |
| The text being discussed is available at http://www.malariaworld.org/blog/breaking-news-clinical-trials-artemisia-plants and |