SS+Healers+neg+-+Solvency

1. There are too many barriers for integration to be successful. Paul **Nadasdy**, Department of Anthropology, The Johns Hopkins University, 19**99** (“THE POLITICS OF TEK: POWER AND THE 'INTEGRATION' OF KNOWLEDGE”, Arctic Anthropology; 1999, Vol. 36 Issue 1/2, p1, 18p) [Ha] There are two conventional ways of explaining why it has been so difficult in practice to integrate traditional knowledge and science. One type of explanation is encountered primarily in official and formal settings; the other can be heard only in more informal and unofficial contexts. At conferences, workshops, and other formal arenas for the discussion of traditional knowledge and co-management, as well as in the vast majority of the academic and policy-oriented literature on the topic, participants and authors are likely to identify and focus on certain obstacles to the integration of traditional knowledge and science. These, they argue, arise from the fact the two types of knowledge are incommensurable. __In contrast to traditional knowledge, which is__ assumed to be qualitative, intuitive, __holistic__, and oral, __science is seen as__ quantitative, analytical__, reductionist__, and literate. Indeed, __one cannot examine the question of traditional knowledge for long without being confronted by a barrage of such dualistic comparisons__ (often arranged neatly in a table) __purporting to sum up the differences between traditional and scientific knowledge__. The assumption is that __since traditional knowledge is expressed in a form that is vastly different from, and largely incompatible with, that of science, there are a whole host of essentially technical problems that accompany the effort to integrate th__em. Most of these problems relate to difficulties in accessing and collecting TEK or with translating it into a form that can be utilized by resource managers. __This approach views the present lack of progress towards integration as resulting from the complexity of these problems and the difficulty in developing strategies and methodologies capable of effectively dealing with them__.

2. Status quo solves—over 80 percent of doctors are traditional. Erick V. A. **Gbodossou**, President of PROMETRA (Association For the Promotion of Traditional Medicine) International, Virginia Davis **Floyd**, Visiting Scholar in Traditional Knowledge Systems at Spelman College and Executive Director of PROMETRA, **and** Charles Ibnou **Katy**, coordinator of research and patient services at the Center for Experimental Traditional Medicine, ‘0**3** ("The Role of Traditional Medicine in Africa’s Fight Against HIV/AIDS," PROMETRA International, www.prometra.org/Documents /AIDSinAfrica-ScenariofortheFut ure.pdf) __Traditional healers are the major health manpower resource for Africa__. __Often traditional healers are the only source of health services for major population groups throughout Africa__. In many cases, they are the preferred source of health care. It is estimated that **__between 80 – 85% of the population of sub-Saharan__** **__Africa__** **__receives its health education and health care from practitioners of traditional medicine__**. 1,2,3 __Traditional practitioners far outnumber modern health care practitioners__, are culturally accepted and respected, and more universally located. WHO/AFRO statistics shown inthis table 4 reveal ratios of practitioners to population that highlight this manpower distribution fact.

3. They’re incompatible-- Traditional healers reject modern doctors James **Hall**, Inter-Press Service writer, **2** (Inter-Press Service, Jan 24, lexis) Overworked clinic doctors cannot provide the patient attention offered by traditional healers, whose lack of formal medical training causes tension between them and modern doctors, nurses and medical organizations. __Dismissed by the modern medical establishment as dabblers in superstition and ineffective medicine, the healers tend to be defensive when speaking of their work to outsiders. "Whenever something goes wrong with one of our patients, you hear about it from the doctors," a Swazi healer named Inyoni told a reporter. "But when we save a person or cure an ailment, you never hear about that__."

== 4. Traditional medicine undermines ARV’s—ubhejane proves (Small Clinic At Centre of Debate Over Traditional Medicine, lexis) Over the past few months, hundreds of people have been streaming into an office building in Pinetown, on the outskirts of South Africa's east coast city of Durban, looking for the clinic that sells ubhejane - a herbal mixture they believe can treat HIV/AIDS. __The controversial traditional medicine has received vast media coverage__, mainly due to the backing it has received from influential political figures such as the country's health minister, Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, and provincial health officials in KwaZulu-Natal. Tshabalala-Msimang and KwaZulu Natal's health minister Peggy Nkonyeni reportedly recommended to the mother of the deputy president, who runs a hospice in Durban, that she should give ubhejane to her patients. The city's mayor, Obed Mlaba, is also supporting the herbal remedy, and is sponsoring its supply to patients at a hospice in Inchanga, a rural village about 40 km from Durban. But __ubhejane,__ a dark brown liquid sold in old plastic milk bottles, __has yet to undergo clinical trials to test its efficacy.__ __All that has so far been confirmed__, according to tests by the University of KwaZulu Natal's (UKZN) medical school, __is that it is not toxic__. Despite the negative publicity in the national media, on the ground in KwaZulu-Natal __there seems to be far greater willingness to accept the traditional medicine as an effective remedy. As a result, AIDS activists warn that the government's apparent support for ubhejane could undermine the roll-out of antiretrovirals__ (ARVs) - the orthodox treatment that can prolong the lives of HIV-positive people. __The cost of ubhejane does not seem to have dented its appeal__. Government-supplied ARVs have been free since 2003, but a full course of the herbal remedy retails at R374 (US$62.8), in a country where an average low-income salary is around $250. __Just 100,000 South Africans are receiving ARV therapy out of the estimated 500,000 believed to be in need of treatment__.
 * UN Region Information Networks**, **6**

5. Patents A. Traditional medicine is co-opted—drug companies patent medicines Xiaorui **Zhang**, Acting Coordinator, Traditional Medicine World Health Organization, **2k** (UNCTAD Expert Meeting on "Systems and National Experiences for Protecting Traditional Knowledge, Innovations and Practices,” http://r0.unctad.org/trade_env/docs/who.pdf) __The new issues are concerned on how benefits are derived from the use of biodiversity and how associated traditional medicine are shared, and how to protect the intellectual property rights between holders of traditional knowledge and researchers during the process of transfer of this kind of traditional knowledge to the modern technologies. The challenge is that the vast majority of plant genetic resources and other forms of biodiversity are found in – or originate from – developing countries. In most situations, knowledge of traditional medicine is at times appropriated, adapted and patented by scientists and industry__, for the most part from developed countries, __with little or no compensation to the custodians of this knowledge and without their prior informed consent__. The protection of traditional knowledge, innovations and practices of indigenous and traditional medicine and equitable sharing of benefits have been receiving increasing attention on the international agenda in recent years.

== B. This causes colonialism and destruction of indigenous cultures Jonathan B. **Warner**, Indiana University School of Law—Bloomington, **6** (“Using Global Themes to Reframe the Bioprospecting Debate”, Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 13.2, http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/indiana_journal_of_global_legal_studies/v013/13.2warner.html) __Neocolonialism is intricately linked to bioprospecting__. 35 Typically, __corporations from developed nations__, usually from the northern hemisphere, under Western ideas of property ownership36 and intellectual property laws, 37 __appropriate biodiversity from developing nations__. 38 __These corporations act under the__ [End Page 645] __assumption that it is their natural right to take these resources__. 39 As one commentator notes: __The freedom that transnational corporations are claiming through intellectual property rights__ protection in the GATT agreement on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights. __.. is the freedom that European colonizers have claimed since 1492__. Columbus set a precedent when he treated the license to conquer non-European peoples as a natural right of European men. The land titles issued by the pope through European kings and queens were the first patents. . __.. Eurocentric notions of property and piracy are the bases on which the [intellectual property] laws of the GATT and World Trade Organization. .. have been framed__. __When Europeans first colonized the non-European world, they felt it was their duty to "discover and conquer," to "subdue, occupy, and possess[]". .. everything, every society, every culture. The colonies have now been extended to the interior spaces__, the "genetic codes" of life-forms from microbes and plants to animals, including humans. . .. __The assumption of empty lands. .. is now being expanded to "empty life," seeds and medicinal plants. . .. The same logic is now used to appropriate biodiversity from the original owners and innovators__ by defining their seeds, medicinal plants, and medical knowledge as nature, as nonscience, and treating the tools of genetic engineering as the yardstick of "improvement." . __.. At the heart of the GATT treaty and its patent laws is the treatment of biopiracy as a natural right of Western corporations, necessary for the "development" of__ __Third World__ __communities. 40 This neocolonialism takes advantage of and abuses aboriginal cultures by stripping them of their ability to participate fully in markets available for their knowledge and skills__. 41 For example, W.R. Grace's neem-based patents give it control over all such products in, at least, the U. S. market, potentially denying [End Page 645] indigenous Indian companies what could otherwise be their largest and most lucrative market. 42 Thus, __the indigenous peoples and companies could be prevented from applying their knowledge and skills to the capitalist systems dominating the world economy. 43 Further, because of their established economic dominance, the northern nations are able to impose their ideologies into international agreements relatively easily. 44 This neocolonialism perpetuates the North-South divide, as typically none of the profits made by the multinational companies return to the states or peoples of origination__. 45

6. Local systems are the best avenue for traditional healers. Steven **Feierman**, Professor of African History @ UPenn, 19**85** (“Struggles for Control: The Social Roots of Health and Healing in Modern Africa”, African Studies Review, Vol. 28, No. 2/3) [Ha] At this modest level, and at the level of national health plans, the lesson is similar. Health professionals do not make the most important health-giving decisions. __At the local level, networks of people caring for their own health within their home communities decide on crucial changes. At the national level, political movements and political factions of all kinds struggle to influence the shape of the polity and of the economy, and through them of health. In either case the professionals, the government works, and the “experts” make important but marginal contributions. They are most constructive if they recognize that their own role is secondary, and that they must try to identify and to serve that special sub-group of lay people who are already at work to improve health__

== 7. The dichotomy of traditional and modern reinforces western ideology. Libbert **Crandon**, PhD Anthropology, U. Connecticut, 19**82** (Medical Anthropology Newsletter, Vol. 13, No. 4 p. 21-22) [Ha] Some of these __conceptual and continuity problems of the volume might have been obviated had the dichotomy between "traditional" and "modern" medical systems been abandoned__. From an anthropological standpoint, __this dichotomy is simplistic, and a conceptual product of the very hegemony that Elling criticizes__. First, Banerji, in his excellent article on the history of Western medical traditions in India, specifically argues __that there is no such thing as a single "modern Western" medical system__. Second, both Elling and McDonald conclude their contributions with a reminder that in and of itself, any curative system plays only a very minor role in the general health of a population in comparison to political and economic forces. Yet, __while the volume addresses the politics rather than the efficacy of medical systems, the reader is nagged throughout by the "whiff' of an assumption that the Western medical system is superior to all other systems__ (which, to one author at least, are basically all the same) __and that Western medicine alone has the power to radically improve the health of the world's population. Hence, the real issue being covertly discussed can only be medical efficacy, as this is defined by professionals in the Western, developed world__. __This conclusion stems logically from the simplicity of the traditional/ modern dichotomy and from the inherent assumptions that it contains. The dichotomy itself winds up being an ideological trap, in spite of the author's protests__.

8. Traditional healers harm patients psychologically—shock Marlise **Richter**, Researcher: AIDS Law Project, **3** (Traditional Medicines and Traditional Healers in South Africa) [__The traditional healers in her study in Kwa-Zulu__ __Natal____] had not received the particular communicative skills that are important in counselling when dealing with patients that might be HIV-positive. It is usually considered redundant or maybe even culture imperialistic to provide healers with counselling skills because one anticipates that there is already a valid discourse inherent in the traditional healing system. What has to be realized, however, is the fact that a ritual of divination, in which all diagnosis takes place, is a highly dramatic event where everything is presented to the patient in a point-blank way. The shock effect is a crucial part of the ritual arrangement, and even though this might be a splendid way of doing things when it comes to revelations of ancestral wrath or witchcraft, it produces consequences when an AIDS-educated healer suddenly states a cogent description of this new disease and the lack of a cure__. 12