The Madagascar Periwinkle and Me

by Dianne Bady

The Madagascar Periwinkle has saved many lives. The chemotherapy chemical vincristine comes from this flower. Vincristine was instrumental in reversing the scourge of childhood leukemia, which is now one of the most curable types of cancer.

Yet this tropical flower was threatened and saved just in time. Fortunately, its amazing therapeutic value was discovered before it, like many other tropical plants, was lost forever.

Vincristine is helping to save my life too. It’s one of the chemotherapy drugs that I’ve been getting to treat the B cell lymphoma that had been making me sick for a long time. This type of blood cancer is also one of the most curable cancers.

Vincristine is no benign herbal remedy though; it comes with its share of unpleasant side effects. I’ve just made the decision to continue with the level of it that I have been getting, rather than reduce the dose and have milder side effects.

One of the many reasons it’s so important to preserve primary tropical forests is that there are still many plant species that scientists have never classified or studied. Will we lose other potential lifesaving plants because they’re bulldozed out of existence?

The implications for OVEC’s work are obvious. For example, a friend in Logan County told me that when he was young, his grandmother regularly went into the forest to collect plants that she used to treat the family’s ills, and plants that she used as tonics to promote good health. By the time he realized that he wanted to learn how to recognize, gather and prepare these plant remedies himself, not only was his grandmother gone, but the forests that she gathered in were annihilated by mountaintop removal.

What a tragedy that our mixed mesophytic forest, the most biodiverse temperate forest on earth, is being destroyed by the coal industry at such an alarming rate. How sad that “our” politicians are so eager to take coal’s political campaign contributions that they can’t be bothered with the irreversible harm that is befalling our rich forests.

Some people whose families have been gathering wild ginseng for generations are now finding that the ginseng is gone, along with the mountains. It’s well known that in the Far East, which provides a ready market for the ginseng harvested in our forests, wild ginseng is highly prized as being much more beneficial than cultivated ginseng.

I want to thank all of you who’ve sent me cards or other expressions of support and care. I wish I had the energy to respond to each of you individually. Please know that each card brightens my day and lifts my spirits! I am planning to be cured and back to work by this fall. For those of you who are praying people, send a few prayers my way.

Dianne founded OVEC in 1987, and has been either OVEC’s president, director or co-director ever since.

Information on vincristine was taken from the book “The Patient from Hell,” by Stephen Schneider, PhD, a lymphoma survivor who is one of our nation’s most prominent researchers on global climate change, as well as being a strong advocate for positive change.