Bitter roots: the search for healing plants in Africa - 46502

For over a century, plant specialists worldwide have sought to transform healing plants from African countries into pharmaceuticals. And for equally as long, conflicts over these medicinal plants have endured.

In 'Bitter Roots', Abena Dove Osseo-Asare draws on publicly available records and extensive interviews with scientists and healers in Ghana, Madagascar, and South Africa to interpret how African scientists and healers, rural communities, and drug companies - including Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Unilever - have sought since the 1880s to develop drugs from Africa's medicinal plants.