Q. Medicines and Drugs - impacts on biodiversity?
The World Health Organization (WHO) has listed over 21,000 plant names (including synonyms) that have recorded medical uses around the world. However, very few of these medicinal plants have as yet been subject to scientific investigation, and only about 5,000 species of higher plants have been fully investigated as potential sources of new drugs to date. At present about 90 species of higher plants have yielded a total of 119 pure chemical substances that are used in medicines throughout the world. An e stimated 4.5 billion people (about 80 percent of the world's population) still use plants as their primary source of medicine. The use of most of these medicines is based on ancestral knowledge. Even in today's high-tech society whose most things can be synthesized in laboratories of modern medicines prescribed in good percentage are of biotic origin. Numerous life saving drugs have been isolated from flowering plants. Close to 30 percent of all pharmaceuticals on the market to day are developed from plants and animals.