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Student 33

Born: 1954, Oklahoma City

After graduating from high school, Kelly enlisted in the United States Marine Corps Reserve. After boot camp at Paris Island, SC, Kelly went into training as a field medic while attending college at the University of Rochester and majoring in pharmaceutical engineering. After graduation from the University of Rochester and finishing a four year stint as a USMC Medic, Kelly Pugh was accepted into OC9 (Officer Training School). Once commissioned as an officer, 2^nd Lieutenant Pugh signed up for a cooperative unit made up of Army and Marine officers assigned to researching anti-biological warfare measures. Through the years, Kelly worked up the chain of command to the rank of Major and became a consultant to the Pentagon on infectious diseases. When he retired, Major Pugh received several offers from large pharmaceutical companies in both the United States and Europe. Kelly declined all offers in order to take up a nonprofit position with WHO (World Health Organization), and is currently studying medicinal uses for tropical plants in the Brazilian Rainforest.

After watching his mother become stricken with cancer and slowly and painfully dying over a two year period, Kelly vowed that he would destroy all diseases so no one would have to go through the pain that his mother endured. Unfortunately, Kelly was only ten years old at the time of his Mother=s death. The goal that Kelly set when he was only ten years of age stayed with him and drove him through high school, college, and his work in the military. While working with the biological warfare unit, he had an opportunity to work with several research scientists who had done extensive research in the tropical rainforests of South American and Indonesia. Kelly was fascinated by what they had to share over lunches. They would sit together and speak of plants, leaves, bark, roots, fruit, sap and other natural substances used for healing all kinds of ailments. They talked of the moso= oi bark which helps with asthma, the polo leaf for fighting infections, the ulu= ma afala root for diarrhea and the bark of the Homalanthus nutans which contains a compound called prostratin which fights hepatitis and is being looked into as a new weapon in the fight agains the AIDS virus (Hallowell). The use of these medicines were and still are known by native Shamans of the area, and scientists are trying to learn as much as possible in order that a new cure might be found for a currently incurable disease. At the same time, the scientists also told Kelly of the deforestation of tropical rainforest around the world. This was being done by native farmers as well as multinational corporations. They told of how these forests, along with their medicinal wealth, could possibly be nonexistent in the next century if trends continued (raintree.com). These facts made Kelly very concerned. With only one percent of the estimated 300,000 plant species having been examined for medicinal properties, hundreds of unexamined species of plants could become wiped out each year without having ever been known. Twenty-five percent of all prescription medication dispensed in the United States have come from floweering plants (Hallowell). That 25% of prescription medication has originated from only 40 plants (Gerber, Marandina). With so much coming from so little, it is easy to imagine how much more is still out there. All this destruction of potentially priceless cures for what? For one timber logger to make a slightly higher profit each year by completely clearing the land of growth instead of harvesting the trees and then waiting for the land to regrow? Research shows that tropical rainforest land that is harvested completely of timber is worth an estimated $400 per acre. If that same land is harvested correctly, it would produce the land owner $2400 per acre. That is $2000 more in their pockets and they could continue to bring in an income from that same land almost every year and leaving the land a bountiful supply of vegetation to be examined by scientists (Raintree.com). Many of the agencies that support medicinal research in the rainforest have set up programs where if a medication, which is based on a native remedy, becomes successful, the government and native people of that region or country will be awarded half of all royalties (Hallowell). Over one hundred pharmaceutical companies and the United Stated Government are currently funding projects studying the indigenous peoples for knowledge of medications. This fact alone became an economic incentive for governments and native people of the land not to sell out to mining and timber companies but keep the land and harvest plants for scientific research.

Another determent to the medicinal research of rainforest plants is the clearing of land for cattle operations. The yield on cattle grazing land is $60 per acre. A far less profit than timber harvesting (raintree.com). Today, entire communities and indigenous tribes earn 5 to 10 times more money harvesting medicinal plants, fruits, nuts, and oils than they can earn by chopping down the rainforest for subsistence crops and grazing (raintree.com). Again, another economic reason to keep the land for research.

If this deforestation goes unchecked into the next century, the hope for finding remedies for illnesses in these tropical environments will dwindle along with the rainforest. If the mining companies, timber companies, and cattle operations can just figure out that moderation is better for everyone in the long run, then we might have a chance at saving the rainforests and keeping the possibility alive that there is a cure out there for cancer or AIDS or one of many currently incurable diseases that plague this world. One plant, one single plant, could unlock so many secrets and answer so many questions and that one plant could be, at this moment, run down by a bull dozer or burned in order to clear the land. It will take many years of research and studying to find and learn what each plant is capable of, but in that time we might learn something so valuable that it will be well worth the wait.

The Rainforest Mock World Summit Fall 1999