While medical doctors in Trinidad and Tobago still distance themselves from alternative medicine, according to retired army officer, Colonel Irwin Faustin, now resident in Ontario, Canada "doctors in Canada are getting more and more interested and are prescribing herbal products."
Because, says Dr Gordon Chang, another Trinidadian resident in Toronto "doctors are being driven by their patients who come in and say I am on this herbal product or that herbal product."
Dr Chang, president of Omega Alpha Pharmaceuticals Inc of Scarborough, Ontario, and Faustin, Manager Sales and Marketing of Alpha, are both in Trinidad introducing the thirty-eight herbal lines produced by Omega, for distribution by the Caribbean Shoppe of 141 Western Main Road, of which former Minister of Trade and Industry, Ken Valley, is Chief Executive Officer and Executive Chairman.
The Shoppe became involved with Omega through selling Dr Chang's brand of the now famous Noni "because of its Caribbean connection" explained Valley. "The fruit used was out of Guyana, this made a connection with my Caribbean Shoppe. It was a natural product and the manufacturer is a Trinidadian, a Caribbean person."
While many brands of Noni are made from the fruit coming out of Tahiti. Dr Chang, who holds a doctorate from the University of Toronto's Department of Physiology and Institute of Biomedical Engineering, considers Guyana "a pristine source. The fruit is not cultivated but grows wild in the Amazon jungles. We place an order with the Guyanase shipper who gets the native Amerindians to go into the jungle and harvest it, and sends it to our factory in Canada." Omega's Noni is cheaper, not because of its quality, but the way it is marketed directly from manufacturer to retailer, minus the multi-level market.
Dr Chang is quite quick to say that "Noni will not necessarily work for all and sundry, it depends on who takes it, for some people it will do nothing, for some it is the second coming of Christ, it just depends on what ails you. People call us who basically swear by this thing. One person who used it for an irritable bowel called us saying Noni basiclly cleared it up. However, we cannot make claims like this in Canada because you make these claims and it becomes a medical claim and the product becomes a drug."
Dr Chang, who employs about twelve persons in his Scarborough factory and a few more at the encapsulation plant in Guelph, admits that Canada is not the only place in the world making these herbal products: "a lot of people are making similar products worldwide as there is a huge major interest in herbal medicine. While modern medicine is necessary for acute problems such as surgery, stitiching wounds etc, as we get older and suffer from chronic illnesses, modern medicine does not have a good handle on it. There is a lot of scientific evidence for the efficacy of these products done by university professors and other academia but grants for most of this research are passed to the pharmaceutical companies, as the feeling is you cannot patent these products so why pump millions for research into them."
Dr Chang, who grew up in Curepe, started off doing two years post doctoral fellow with the Toronto General Hospital, but because there is always a problem with funding for doing research "I got out and went into the manufacture of pharmaceutical products, over the counter drugs like cough syrups and aspirins. I started doing private label custom manufacturing, and selling to small to medium sized chains."
"Herbal supplements started to get big, we had the technology, knowledge and academic background, and with Dr Frank Cheung, a Canadian, originally from Hong Kong, branched off to herbal products."
Unlike pharmaceutical products, supplements help without any of the extreme side effects, like in arthritis where the anti-inflammatory drugs sometimes affect the stomach. "Our safety margin is a lot bigger" stresses Dr Chang "and while the side-effects of the herbal product may make you sick like a dog, it will pass, whereas some pharmaceutical side effects can put you in a hospital."
Herbal compounds were there before the invention of antibiotics and sulphur made the pharmaceutical companies became all powerful, and says Dr Chang "if I am stranded on a deserted island, give me a herbalists, no doctor, no pharmacist, they do not know where half of these drugs come from. At least the herbalist will know what to use from the plant life on the island."
Through his visiting schedule, Faustin has come to the conclusion that "doctors in Canada and the United States are catching on to herbal products, also more and more health food stores are stocking herbal products."
Omega carries a pharmaceutical manufacturing licence which makes for more stringent controls. The powers that be can ask for the company's records, batches, how much raw material was bought, how much manufactured, how much sold: "all the numbers have to add up otherwise we can lose our licence" says Dr Chang "our manufacturing facilities are approved by Health and Welfare Canada, and is staffed by highly qualified scientists and technicians."
Dr Chang will return to Trinidad sometime in March to help the Caribbean Shoppe with the education of those interested in using Omega's multi herbal lines which include its own Viagra equivalent "Tribulus Terristris" for enchancement of the libido in men and women, the new arthritic find "Glucosamine and Chondroitin Sulphate", and Ginkgo Biloba, which Dr Chang believes will not prevent the dreaded Alzheimer's disease, but could help in stopping deterioration of the brain.