SS+Healers+neg+-+Integration+fails+or+is+bad

Integration of traditional medicine into western infrastructures is impossible due to structural differences. Frances **Abele**, School of Public Administration @ Carleton U., 19**97** (“Traditional Knowledge in Practice”, Arctic 50(4):iii-iv) [Ha] The GNWT has adopted what is probably __the first formal traditional knowledge policy__ in Canada, __in an attempt to improve democratic representation__ in the North __by moving the policies and practices of territorial government closer to reflecting the values and needs of__ all northern __residents.__ The Traditional Knowledge Policy is only one aspect of this endeavour, but it is a potentially far-reaching one that deserves intelligent discussion and debate. Most public policies of wide application are expressed in general terms. This is certainly true for the GNWT Traditional Knowledge Policy. __Each principle of the policy remains to be “unpacked” and interpreted by the public service staff who must turn general principles into action. They face some difficult questions. Should they aim for uniformity in interpretation of the policy guidelines? This is likely an unattainable goal: however one interprets traditional knowledge, the interpretation will certainly encounter differing challenges when applied to social services__, for example, in contrast to public finance, or wildlife management. __How do staff in various departments learn of the decisions their counterparts are making? How do departments coordinate to ensure sufficient overall uniformity of policy and approach?__ The Government of the Northwest Territories attempted to resolve such questions through an interdepartmental committee (which appears to have been ultimately ineffective). Clearly, the refinement and implementation of such a profoundly important and potentially transformative policy require concerted bureaucratic effort, astute and committed leadership, and a reasonable span of time for trial and error.

Western integration kills biodiversity 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) Another urgent issue is that __with the widespread use of traditional medicine and the tremendous expansion of international herbal products markets, the great commercial profit from traditional medicines and medicinal plants have also brought serious problems of global biodiversity loss. Because pharmaceutical herbal production needs big quantity of raw materials of medicinal plants, many plants have been over collected and become danger species. For example, some information mentioned that African potato was good for AIDS__ in 1997. __After two years, this particular specie has completely disappeared__ in Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Western ideologies will always dominate traditional knowledge. Chidi Oguamanam, Assistant Professor of Law, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, 2004 (“Localizing Intellectual Property in the Globalization Epoch: The Integration of Indigenous Knowledge”, p. 149-150) [Ha] Similar to the narrow organismic and fragmentary nature of biomedicine, the patent regime insists on a detailed analysis of information or data according to their scientific relevance. Like biomedicine, it discounts all knowledge forms or information that cannot be interpreted in a scientific or technological sense. It [End Page 149] emphasizes specificity of information. In medico-pharmaceutical contexts, patent demands the identification, isolation, synthesizing or purification of active substances, as well as the physiological or scientific ramification of a given therapeutic intervention. This is not only irrelevant in the indigenous context,57 but also more than indigenous epistemological tradition could satisfactorily explain or rationalize. Unless indigenous therapeutic experience is expressed and proven in a Western scientific manner, it would not be protected by the patent regime. Even if patent protection may be achieved, invariably, it would be at the expense of a forced epistemic assimilation of traditional knowledge into the dominant scientific narrative. As a result, epistemic pluralism is compromised. In other words, indigenous contributions to the global basket of knowledge—in this case medical knowledge, including indigenous cultural integrity—will be forced to give way to the unipolar epistemic hegemony of Western biomedicine. As if with this scenario in mind, Agrawal warns: "Many wish to use international patents system to protect the interests of the poor and the marginal. The danger is that such activities on behalf of indigenous knowledge can become ends in themselves, and the interests of the marginal can become sidelined."58 Western episteme sustains the patent institution and practice. Extended to traditional medicine, the patent system works to rid local people of their oral tradition and culture of health care. The imperative for medical pluralism is premised on the fact that neither Western biomedicine, nor any medical system for that matter, has a monopoly of solution to all human afflictions. New diseases and afflictions continue to inundate mankind, thus necessitating the need to keep all options open in the search for viable treatment.

Integration of traditional medicine will wipe out indigenous knowledge. Chidi Oguamanam, Assistant Professor of Law, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, 2004 (“Localizing Intellectual Property in the Globalization Epoch: The Integration of Indigenous Knowledge”, p. 150-151) [Ha] __A prominent public health law scholar, David Fidler, has noted that in the globalization era, traditional medicine is in imminent danger of demise.59 According to Fidler, the attempt to regulate traditional medicine and integrate it into mainstream public health for better health care delivery is "a move to Westernize traditional medical practices by moving them onto a firmer scientific and legal basis."60 Fidler associates this trend with cultural erosion, which is capable [End Page 150] of eventually making traditional medicine irrelevant in developing countries.61 In addition to Fidler's fears, perhaps more than the impact of direct policy interventions in the globalization era, the idea of IP, especially the patent regime in relation to traditional medicine, represents the most potential threat to the future of that sensitive genre of indigenous knowledge.__

The attempt to protect local knowledge just forces epistemological assimilation. Chidi Oguamanam, Assistant Professor of Law, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, 2004 (“Localizing Intellectual Property in the Globalization Epoch: The Integration of Indigenous Knowledge”, p. 168) [Ha]

__Regimes for the protection of knowledge are products of the socio-cultural and epistemological environments in which knowledge is generated. Every culture has knowledge-protection mechanisms. Protecting traditional knowledge__ __with western IP __is possible at the price of forced epistemological assimilation____ of [End Page 168] the former. This is evident from the illustration this article makes about traditional medicine and patents. As a centrifugal initiative, the ongoing effort to integrate indigenous customary knowledge-protection protocols into an alternative IP vision appears to be in conflict with extant globalization in the IP arena. A critical reading of the globalization phenomenon, particularly against the backdrop of indigenous renaissance in the twentieth century, suggests a converse impression. Although the cross-cultural outlook on IP may not conflict with globalization, it is an initiative at a nascent stage. Without doubt, it raises a number of questions, especially with regard to its empirical details, which are not explored in this article. The challenge of globalization to the integration project broached here is only one of the myriad questions arising from the quest for an alternative vision of IP that has just begun.

Incorporating traditional practices reinforces Western biases. Paul Nadasdy, Department of Anthropology, The Johns Hopkins University, 1999 (“THE POLITICS OF TEK: POWER AND THE 'INTEGRATION' OF KNOWLEDGE”, Arctic Anthropology; 1999, Vol. 36 Issue 1/2, p1, 18p) [Ha]

This official type of explanation, __by focusing on the "integration of knowledge systems__" as a technical problem, __is inadequate because it ignores the political dimensions of the issue of knowledge integration. Rather than merely assuming, as many do, that integrating traditional knowledge with science will automatically lead to__ improved resource management and __aboriginal empowerment, we must closely examine the assumptions__ underpinning this project. By doing so, __it will become apparent that the practice of traditional knowledge research and its integration may well be reinforcing, rather than breaking down, a number of Western cultural biases that in the end work against full community involvement__ in managing local land and wildlife. Before developing this argument further, I will turn to a brief discussion of a more hidden discourse surrounding traditional knowledge and its integration with science.