Iraq Pharmacists Feel Pinch, Turn Herbal

Iraqis are using the humble chickweed, marigold and stinging nettles to treat their ills because of a drug shortage the government blames on U.N. sanctions.

In an exhibition organized here by Iraqi and Jordanian pharmacists, more herbal medicines than chemical drugs are on display. Glossy pictures of elderberries, passion flowers and lemon palms adorn the covers of neatly packed herbal remedies.

“Within a year I could prepare herbs for almost 60 diseases,” Dr. Imad Abdulrahman, owner of a herbal medicine factory in Baghdad, told the gathering of 600 pharmacists.

“That’s just one way of making up for the lack of medicines and medical supplies caused by U.N. sanctions.”

Drugs and food are exempt from the U.N. sanctions imposed on Iraq in the wake of its August, 1990, invasion of Kuwait.

But Baghdad says it cannot afford to buy needed drugs because Iraq is prevented from selling oil, and its foreign assets are frozen.

In response, Iraq’s pharmacists are going herbal. They say dried plants and grasses can cure everything from epileptic fits and uterine bleeding to skin diseases and vaginal warts.

Herbs are cheap too. The dearest remedy on display at the exhibition, a preparation to cure indigestion, stomach upsets and ulcers, costs one dinar--$3 at the official exchange rate, but less than 10 cents at the black market rate.

Basil Yahya’s herbal medicine factory in Falluja, west of Baghdad, supplies a chain of Iraqi pharmacies.

“Business is so good that I have decided recently to embark on an advertising campaign to show the advantages herbs have over synthetic chemical drugs,” Yahya said.

Yahya, who holds a degree in pharmaceutical science, said he is trying to combine his scientific knowledge with the traditional medicine still widely practiced by many Iraqis.

His Trigeonella foenum --he uses Latin nomenclature to label his drugs--was a widely used remedy in the past.

The nostrum, a tonic prepared from yellowish grains for women in childbirth, is being modified by Yahya’s herbalists to treat intestinal inflammations, sores and simple injuries.

The Ministry of Health is backing Iraq’s herbal revolution.

“So far we’ve licensed more than 60 herbs which grow naturally in the southern and northern parts of the country,” said Dr. Zuheir Najeeb of the ministry’s Herbal Center. “Our aim is to find as many more herbs as possible.”

But some pharmacists and doctors are unhappy with the boom in herbal medicine.

“The plants must be subject to laboratory and clinical tests before they are dispensed to the public,” a Baghdad University medical professor warned. “Their uncontrolled use might be very dangerous.”

Many of the multipurpose herbal remedies, dispensed without a doctor’s prescription in Iraq, claim amazing healing powers.

An advertisement for a packet of dried stinging nettles boasts that it “fights all kinds of worms, lice, mange as well as bronchitis, coughing and intestinal problems.”

“For me, that’s ridiculous,” said the university medical professor, who refused to be named.

But Iraq’s new herbal entrepreneurs say the doctors are only worried about losing business.

“They think if we succeed, they may have less patients to treat,” one herbalist said.