The IUCN/SSC Shark Specialist Group
Shark News 2: October 1994
|
Disputed cancer 'cure' spells
disaster for Costa Rica's sharks
Johel Jimenez, Tropical Conservation News Bureau
In a small factory in the Pacific port town of Puntarenas, Costa Rica,
workers process towering mounds of cartilage taken from one of the
county's many diminishing wildlife species: sharks. Business is thriving,
even if the shark population is not. According to Luis Mena, manager
of Shark Technology of Costa Rica, from April-December 1993,
monthly production of dried and crushed cartilage increased from
about 3,000 to 22,500 pounds.
Ninety percent of the cartilage is shipped to the United States,
where it is turned into pills that are sold in the U.S. and in Germany,
England, and other European markets. Not approved by the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration, the pills are sold in health magazines. One
brand of shark cartilage pill, called Requin 3, sells for $59 for 90
capsules.
Why would anyone pay so much for crushed cartilage? According
to biochemist Dr. William Lane, who in 1990 helped establish Shark
Technology, shark cartilage contains protein that inhibits tumor
growth. His conclusion is based on his own research. He has
published no scientific papers, offering only anecdotal evidence.
"Shark cartilage is a unique and extremely promising treatment for
cancer," Lane told the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Mena is enthusiastic about Lane's claims. "Before, I did not dare
say that sharks cured cancer," he said. "Today I believe it, after seeing
Dr. Lane's research with 30 patients with terminal cancer in Cuba.
Ninety percent of them were cured, to the surprise of prominent
Cuban doctors."
The chief of oncology at Costa Rica's National Children's Hospital
is not convinced. "These claims have no scientific validity," said Dr.
Francisco Lobo Sanahuja. A spokeswoman for the National Cancer
Institute agrees. "We consider [shark cartilage pills] pretty much a
farce," she said, adding that her advice to cancer patients is "not to
waste their money."
Sharks almost never get cancer. Biochemist Carl Luer at the Mote
Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida, has tried in vain to induce a
tumor in sharks. Researcher Trish Blum works with Luer's research
team and is trying to isolate the cancer-inhibiting protein so it can be
produced synthetically. But Blum emphasises that "there is presently
no evidence to support the idea that taking pills make of shark
cartilage would have any effect on cancer."
As in many other countries, including the United States, Nigeria,
Nicaragua, Mexico and South Africa, the shark population in Costa
Rica is collapsing from overfishing. Also threatening the sharks is the
market for shark fins, which are exported to Asian countries for shark-
fin soup. In Costa Rica, shark fins are sold for as much as $65 a pound.
Sharks may not be able to withstand this deadly pressure much
longer. Most shark species do not begin breeding until they are 10 or
12 years old. Many species produce just two offspring per breeding
cycle. Odds are, then, that a dismal percentage of the sharks hauled
into Shark Technology have not reproduced. Ecologists worry that the
disappearance of sharks, which are at the top of the food chain, could
have a devastating effect of the complex web of life in the ocean.
But if a Costa Rican enterprise is contributing both to medical
fraud and ecological disaster, the country seems unconcerned.
President Rafael Calderon presided over Shark Technology's
inauguration. In 1992, Costa Rica's Export council awarded the
factory its prize as the most original new export business.
Nor is Mena worried about depletion of the species on which
the business depends. "When there is scarcity, we will import
cartilage from Guatemala or El Salvador," he said. He explained
that to produce their old quota of 7,000 kilos of dried cartilage each
month, they need 350,000 kilos of "green" cartilage. And they'll take
any kind of shark they can get. When asked how many sharks per day
the factory processed, the manager refused to answer. When pressed
if it was 100 a day, 200 a day? The manager just said, "More than
that."
The company plans to open another factory, in a small
port town on Nicaragua's Caribbean coast.
The above story first appeared in Living Oceans
News, Spring/Summer 1994, a newsletter of the National
Audubon Society's Living Oceans Program, and is
reproduced with the Society's permission.
|
|
|
|
|
