For those
who have been following this series about Kava, the sacred plant from
the Pacific, from whose roots a soporific and relaxing traditional ritual drink
is made, it might be of interest for you to go out and try and buy medicinal
kava extract or tablets. The latter have been easily available in Health
Food shops in England and the US for nearly a decade and in medicinal form from
pharmacies in Germany, Switzerland and France for slightly longer than that.
Countless thousands of Europeans and Americans have benefited from the medicinal
properties of this most wondrous (plant) root by purchasing medicinal kava
extract or kava tablets to alleviate those most common disorders of the
modern world - stress, tension and anxiety. But is seems those days are over.
As we
have seen in the previous articles, recent medical reports and associated press
articles have lead people to believe that there may possibly be a connection
between kava and liver damage. At least that is what seems to be the
conclusion in Switzerland, Germany, France, the UK, and now Australia, Canada
and the US. In all of these countries authorities have either introduced a ban
or prohibition or advised withdrawal of kava-based medicinal products
because of this all within the last few months. This situation really started
coming to a head in Germany at the end of last year and most of the international
press reports lead back to Germany. Most of the countries cite reports from
Germany as the source or reason for the advice to withdraw kava extract
products from sale - the UK did this late last year and the US Food and Drug
Administration announced the same on 25th March 'citing the
other countries' actions'. So if you are in the UK or the US you may go out
to buy some medicinal kava extract and not be able to get any. Blame
Germany? Well, tear your hair out, but Germany is the only place in Europe now
where one can still easily buy medicinal kava extract (for relieving
stress) across the counter in almost any pharmacy. Strange world. No 'ban' has
officially been announced yet by the relevant German government authority, but
meanwhile much of the rest of the 'modern' world have already followed like
brain-dead sheep and turned a non-existent 'ban' into a de facto ban that has
halted the export of kava roots from the kava-producing islands
of the Pacific. This has, and will, severely affect the lives of many Pacific
Islanders, for whom kava growing and export has become one of the few
sources of income.
It seems
'our' side of the world is shouting 'Beware of kava!' The Pacific Island
world is puzzled, and rather angry. Pacific Islanders in the traditional kava-drinking
nations do not associate kava-drinking in any way with any form of liver
problems and they have drinking kava for longer than England, France
and Germany have even existed! Just to rub the salt in a little bit, readers
should note that the world's oldest continuously ruling royal family or lineage
is also nowhere in Europe, but is the present day royal lineage of the Pacific
Island nation of Tonga. And certain Pacific islands have actually been drinking
kava from before anyone even lived in Tonga! South Pacific Islanders
are famously polite and the Pacific nations have expressed concern - and also
disbelief - at European reports linking kava with liver damage. I would
agree with them and would, in fact, put a proper reaction in slightly stronger
terms by saying, in Vanuatu Bislama (the Vanuatu variant of Pidgin English)
that much of these overseas press reports consist of a significant proportion
of "shitshit blong bullock". Do I need to translate that last
phrase? - I don't think so.
There
is possibly or probably quite a difference between the natural kava drunk
traditionally in the Pacific and the kava extracts sold in various forms
overseas in medicinal form. The extraction processes for the modern products
try, in general, to separate and concentrate what are thought to be the relaxing,
active, ingredients of the root, the so-called 'kavalactones'. But in
the natural plant these kavalactones form only part of the complex chemical
ingredients in the root and it is possible that the other ingredients are essential
for the full range of 'beneficial effects'. Some scientists in Europe have said
that cases of 'damage' to patients outlined in the recent medical reports and
the press often concerned cases of individuals sometimes regularly taking 'more
than the recommended daily dose' of extracts containing kavalactones.
There is a slight problem with that approach, though. Very often kava drinkers
in Vanuatu will traditionally regularly drink fresh kava containing much
higher concentrations of kavalactones (plus the other ingredients) than
even the most exaggerated Euro-American 'extract overdose'. They may sometimes
have a bit of a 'wild and exciting' couple of hours at times (I know, it has
happened to me too, and I have had some great times!) but many have been doing
it for years. If done in the proper, controlled, traditional way, though, it
is fine and I know of respected indigenous men on the island of Tanna in southern
Vanuatu who have been drinking kava thus almost every single evening
of their adult lives over 30, 40 or even 50 years. As with everything one eats
and drinks, 'everything in moderation' should be the goal. But maybe 'the white
man' in Euro-America isn't healthy or strong enough? Or is there something more
complex, a bit like the existence or non-existence of the infamous 'alcohol
enzyme' necessary to enable one to drink and digest alcohol without poisoning
oneself? As we have pointed out in an earlier article, neither Australian Aborigines
nor Amerindians possess this stomach enzyme, which is why alcohol is so dangerous
for them (the knowledge of this has not prevented white people selling them
nor them from purchasing alcohol). Is there a necessary 'kava enzyme'
that lucky Pacific islanders possess that unlucky 'white people' do not possess?
I do not think so, as there are now enough Pacific-island - based 'white people'
who are regular kava drinkers to allay that thought and the numbers of
people around the world who have taken kava extract or tablets over
the last decade or so is enormous. In the US alone, where kava tablets
etc really only kicked off in a big way from 1998, there was more than $34 million
spent on purchasing kava medicines in the short period November 2000
- November 2001!
There
is, however, possibly one medical study that links in to this, but I have not
yet been able to track down the original version. It may be a French study,
as the only reference to it that I have seen surfaced at the end of January
in an interview with a hospital biopharmacist and researcher in New Caledonia.
According to this researcher, approximately one in every 170,000 people has
in his/her liver a rare type of enzyme that, if combined with (?one of the)
kavalactones could possibly produce a toxic enzyme. This has the possibility
of provoking a kind of allergy that might eventually damage the liver, it was
said. There is an extremely rare form of kava allergy that is known
in Vanuatu, where the face can slightly swell up - one of my very close ni-Vanuatu
(indigenous inhabitant of Vanuatu) friends had it in the early 1980s, but he
is still alive, fit and active. There is traditional medicine in Vanuatu for
this uncommon condition, and as the condition is so rare one may have to leave
one's island to go to the island with the knowledge of the medicine if one thinks
one needs to take it. But in general it is known - in Vanuatu - that kava
is a lot better for the liver than alcohol. A white friend of mine in Vanuatu
got a rather bad dose of hepatitis in the early 1980s and went on to be given
a special type of kava medicinally as a liver cleanser. I myself had
a rather bad liver around that time after suffering numerous malaria attacks
(normal for anyone working in that part of the world) and being given the wrong
(and bad treatment) for a particularly bad attack. Up to 1983 I had been a regular
drinker of wine, in rather large quantities, but living in the tropics makes
one's system work nearly twice as hard to process the alcohol. By '1983, what
with alcohol, malaria, and one very bad medical treatment for malaria (I had
been drinking kava since 1973, but never on the same day as alcohol),
the liver really complained. Since then I have only drunken kava (no
alcohol), and there have been no complaints. It is admittedly, rather difficult
to drink kava on Ibiza, but I drink fresh kava regularly every
evening on my yearly visits back to Vanuatu (I left Vanuatu in late 1989 to
come to Ibiza) where I am still pursuing anthropological work (and am Honorary
Curator of the Vanuatu Cultural Centre - the nation's National Museum). I mention
all this purely to indicate that when I am talking about kava, I am
not talking about it like most of the Euro-American scientists, I actually do
know a little bit about it! And Vanuatu kava is the world's strongest
and the range of different types of kava grown there is vast - over
82 different varieties of the plant, each with their own types of effect. Most
of the scientists overseas seem to think there is really only one variety of
the plant - and this is not surprising, as eastwards from Vanuatu across the
Pacific there are really only between 5-10 subspecies of the plant (and rather
weak varieties at that - and they mix their drink with a lot more water than
is used in Vanuatu!). This latter region is the area where most studies have
been done and where Europe and the US get most of their kava rootstock
from to make kava medicines and tablets. At a non-spiritual level, it
is rather like the difference between whisky and beer, with the men in Vanuatu
being the whisky drinkers (plus one other area in Micronesia, the small island
of Ponape) and the rest of the Pacific being beer drinkers. What the 'white
man' seems to be complaining about are supposed effects from the Pacific 'beer',
without knowing that a hardy nation of whisky drinkers exists where life continues
as normal!
The above-mentioned
(?French) study hinting at possible levels of one in every 170,000 people maybe
being more susceptible to kava is interesting, but if true, is not grounds
for the type of 'ban' that seems to be coming into effect. Any statistician
looking at that would say that the percentage is statistically insignificant
to the extent of being almost non-existent. Excess coffee or alcohol, etc, provide
much higher statistical levels of danger to the liver - as do some household
chemicals, certain sprays and detergents, and so on. But kava is 'the
unknown' (at least to Euro-American governments and medical associations) and
therefore more likely to be blamed for all sorts of things that one really doesn't
know too much about (a bit like 'the Communist threat' during the Cold War).
This reminds
me of a rather charming story that was doing the rounds of the diplomatic 'cocktail
circuit' of the kava-drinking nations of the Pacific in the mid-1980s.
How accurate it is, I am not sure, but there is no smoke without fire, and I
heard it from a good contact. Relatively small amounts of South Pacific kava
root and kava powder were being imported into the US from the 1970s for
traditional consumption by the small number of Samoans and Tongans living mainly
in California. Around 1986, the US government suddenly seemed to put a ban on
its import, in spite of the fact that some rather successful experiments had
been done with it in a California prison for violent offenders in the early
1970s (these offenders ended up becoming more relaxed and normal, but the experiments
were halted when kava stocks ran out - it was not too easy to get regular
supplies in those days). Of course, hardly any 'white people' knew much about
kava in the US in those days, except for a small number of academics
who had worked in the Pacific, a handful of medical specialists - and a few
aging CIA operatives who some said had experimented with it amongst the nearly
150 'chemical substances' used in the CIA's 'mind control' experiments of the
1950s, 1960s and early 1970s (under the codenames projects MKULTRA, MKDELTA,
Bluebird and Artichoke). However, a persistent advertisement kept appearing
in the early 1980s in certain Californian magazines; 'Get your Ounce of Legal
South Pacific High', advising readers they could purchase powdered kava
by ordering from a PO Box address in, I think, Santa Monica. A drawing with
the advert showed a rather cool-looking hippie with large hat and beard smoking
a giant joint. Of course no one in their right mind would bother smoking kava,
all one would probably get would be an expensive case of sore lungs, but it
seems the police went into high alert anyway. Fiji was particularly affected
by the US ban on kava imports and the Fijian Prime Minister, Ratu Sir
Kamisese Mara, went to Washington to see the Secretary of State. This was during
Reagan's presidency, and George Shultz held that position - and he had recently
been on an official visit to Fiji. There he had, like all-important visitors,
been ritually welcomed with the important ceremonial drink, Yanggona.
"Why has your government banned South Pacific Yanggona"? the
Fijian Prime Minister politely asked. "No, we have banned South Pacific
kava, it's a pinko-commie drug", Shultz was reported to have replied
(indicating therefore, I assume, that it might be a threat to democracy)."But
kava is Yanggona", Mara said "..and I thought I would
bring along as a gift to you these official Fijian press photos of you drinking
it during your recent visit". However accurate this story is one may never
know, but the US kava 'ban' was lifted shortly after Mara's visit.
Regarding the extremely small numbers of supposed cases of 'kava-induced
liver damage' and the vast amounts of kava medicines sold over the last
decade in Germany (see last week's article Weekly Edition 057 Saturday 30th
March 2002): I discussed this with a number of German pharmaceutical people
during the three weeks my wife and I spent there in January. They agreed that
the number of alleged cases was infinitesimal. The doctors, though, were of
course doing their correct duty in reporting anything. My German brother-in-law,
a respected economist and statistician, did say that whoever had done the reports
and releases had little idea of statistics. Other pharmacists told me the same,
but not in such academic terms. One wondered why there was so much fuss about
medicinal kava extract and the liver when, for example, it was known
that the aspirin-type painkiller Paracetemol could possibly damage the liver
and yet was still easily available. Another said what about Viagra, that was
already responsible for 70-80 deaths but whose registration had not been withdrawn
(at which point I said 'This just shows that sex and money are more important
than death', a comment that was met with a meaningful silence). It was not until
recently that I came across a report indicating that by September 2001 a total
of 616 people worldwide had died from using Viagra (many, it is said, by using
it incorrectly). Remember that Viagra has really only been in use for about
five years, not 2000 or 3000 years, like kava and there are more kava-users
in the world than there are Viagra-takers, I am pretty sure! Most of these things
are probably pretty good and safe, though, if used in the proper way and with
the proper supervision.
But if
Euro-America (and Australia) want to ban kava products on whatever basis,
what about FAVISM? 'Favism'?, you say? Well, I had never heard of it
either until a Swiss friend and colleague - a respected botanist and environmentalist
who has been known to have a coconut shell or two of Vanuatu kava - put
me on to it recently. Favism is an inherited condition, an hereditary (and sometimes
fatal) intolerance to beans, specifically to fava beans from the plant vicia
faba. These beans are a common element of Euro-American nutrition. Certain Mediterranean
populations, especially in southern Italy and particularly Sardinia, possess
an hereditary enzyme deficiency that triggers a severe reaction to an intake
of fava beans - and sometimes even to fava pollen. Intake can result in acute
hemolytic anaemia and even death. Those affected by favism can be up to as much
as 4% of Mediterranean populations that have a tendency to lack this enzyme.
In Sardinia, though, it can affect up to 35% of the population. For over a century,
schoolteachers in Sardinia had noted a strange annual occurrence, mostly amongst
their male students. With the arrival of spring each February, a high percentage
of students seemed drained of energy and this situation lasted each year for
three months. Most just felt lethargic, others died, urinating blood. It was
the time when fava pollen was in the air. There are many individuals of southern
Italian descent in the United States. Those suffering from favism should not
only not eat (fava) beans, but should not take aspirin, vitamin C, certain anti-malarial
tablets and certain anti-bacterials and certain heart drugs. Sounds pretty scary.
Have you ever heard any suggestion that (fava) beans should be banned? No, of
course not. It is part of our 'accepted Euro-American lifestyle', like other
potential killers such as alcohol, tobacco and so much of the other paraphernalia
of our polluted side of the world.
But these
things come from 'our' world and 'we' have become unconsciously inured to their
potential dangers, we look upon the level of risk as 'acceptable'. Kava
- with no real known risk in the Pacific over millennia (except for possible
temporary symptoms if overdone for long periods, normal with almost anything)
is not from 'our' world, it is a gift to us from a more ancient corner of the
globe, and we seem to have messed it up. The traditional drink of kava
is associated with some of the world's oldest religions, with the bridging of
that gap between the material and spirit world. That is why so many early (and
even some today) missionaries in the Pacific were/are so much against it. For
Pacific islanders, this recent Euro-American kava 'ban' is just a continuation
of those early bigoted views. It is almost as if this recent ban is a confirmation
of a certain type of 'Western' attitude that was so succinctly put once by John
Foster Dulles, one of the most important planners of so much of US foreign policy
since World War II: "For us there are two sorts of people in the world;
there are those who are Christian and support free enterprise and there are
the others". Most Pacific Islanders are now, though, devout Christians
(which does not mean, however, that the older, traditional, religions have completely
lost their relevance) and Christianity now plays a larger part in their lives
than in those of most of Western Europe's inhabitants.
Why, then,
should worries about kava medicinal extract have created such press frenzy
in Germany from the end of last year? There are several factors involved, but
one of the major ones was accidental timing. In August 2001 the relevant German
government authority officially withdrew from use the anti-cholesterol drug
Lipobay (I think it is called Baycol in the US) produced by the German pharmaceutical
giant, Bayer. The 'scandal' still reverberates, with possible court cases still
pending in the US, and elsewhere. The Lipobay affair had many tentacles, rather
like the Enron octopus, but not spreading into the political arena. Of course
it had nothing to do with kava, but in Germany it sort of set the scene
for any even minor thing happening after that. We are beginning to get into
the scary stuff, but that will have to wait until my next column. |