Loss Of Species Poses Threat To New Cures.

"A generation of treatments for diseases ranging from cancer to kidney failure might be lost unless the erosion of biodiversity in sea and on land is reversed, according to the authors of a new book.

Experimental treatments can be derived from chemicals made by frogs, bears and salamanders, for example, but Sustaining Life, whose lead authors, Eric Chivian and Aaron Bernstein, are from Harvard, warns that the rapid loss of species from pollution and climate change is threatening these efforts. ...

The book examines organisms that are valuable to medicine - amphibians, bears, cone snails, sharks, primates, gymnosperms (pine trees, for example) and horseshoe crabs, among them - that are classified as vulnerable or endangered. ..." [The Financial Times (UK)]

AP notes that "...Earth's organisms offer a variety of naturally made chemical compounds with which scientists could develop new medicines, but are under threat of extinction, said Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the UN Environment Program.

'We must do something about what is happening to biodiversity,' Steiner told reporters. 'We must help society understand how much we already depend on diversity of life to run our economies, our lives, but more importantly, what are we losing in terms of future potential.' ..." [The Associated Press/Factiva]