Afrika in Focus Health Special: Trump, Pharmaceuticals, and Pregnancy: Medical Controversies Examined

Trump's recent claims about paracetamol being dangerous for pregnant women has sparked fierce debate, but behind the controversy lies a deeper question: are pharmaceutical drugs truly compatible with Black bodies?

For thousands of years, African people relied exclusively on medicinal plants to treat everything from hypertension to diabetes. THE Father of medicine Imhotep documented treatments for over 200 ailments using natural remedies long before Western pharmaceuticals existed. This tradition of natural healing stands in stark contrast to our modern dependence on synthetic drugs - a shift that may have serious consequences for melanated people.

The alarming statistic that Black women in the UK are five times more likely to die during or after childbirth demands urgent examination. Similar disparities exist across the Americas, Caribbean, and throughout Africa. Could pharmaceutical interventions be contributing to these deaths? Research already shows that substances like cocaine affect Black individuals differently due to interactions with melanin. 

What if common medications prescribed during pregnancy interact similarly with melanated bodies? While medical establishments dismiss Trump's claims, we must consider whether there's merit to questioning the universal application of pharmaceuticals across different genetic backgrounds. 

Chinese traditional medicine continues to thrive alongside modern practices, recognizing that plant-based remedies often work harmoniously with the body without harmful side effects.

For Black communities worldwide, reclaiming knowledge of traditional healing practices might be crucial to addressing persistent health disparities. Rather than relying solely on a pharmaceutical system not designed with our bodies in mind, perhaps we should investigate the medicinal plants that sustained our ancestors for millennia.

What healing wisdom have we forgotten? How might reconnecting with traditional African medicine transform maternal health outcomes? Join the conversation about pharmaceutical compatibility with melanated bodies and share this episode if these questions resonate with you.

Sources:

Trump makes unproven claims linking autism to Tylenol use by pregnant women - BBC News

Feature: Racism & Health In US Medicine, A Conversation with Harriet A. Washington | Health Affairs

(1) Harriet Washington, "Medical Apartheid" author interview - YouTube

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Podcast Highlights
• 1:56 Trump's Controversial Paracetamol Claims
• 4:06 Pharmaceuticals vs Black Melanin
• 8:34 Black Maternal Mortality Crisis
• 11:02 The Politics Behind Trump's Statement
• 15:20 Call for Traditional Medicine Renaissance

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:04

Hello, and welcome to this week's edition of African Focus with myself, Kwame, Ghanaian writer, journalist, broadcaster, podcast, and entrepreneur. And this week's edition of African Focus, Trump and Pharmaceuticals and Pregnancy. So this is the theme for this week's show. So before we get into the show, if you like what you hear, please share with your friends, your family, your social media networks. Subscribe to Ghana, African Focus on YouTube. Also subscribe to Ghana, African Focus on Spotify. Look out for Ghana, African Focus on Spotify. Click the notification bell. And that means Spotify will notify you every time we upload a new podcast. And we're also featured on the top 80 podcasts in Ghana. So this is a um compilation being compiled by a company called Fe Spot. Uh who you collect data on the popular podcast in Ghana. And we're actually in the top 20 of the best podcasts in Ghana. So thank you to for all of you who have made Ghana Avocate and Focus one of the most popular podcasts in Ghana. So apart from uh those two portals I've just mentioned, you can also access us on feed spot. So just look out for feed spot uh podcast and then type in Ghana, African Focus, Investor Children. You can get us there. Alright, so let's get into the podcast today looking about Trump, parasitamo, and pregnancy. So Donald Trump caused a huge um you know cry uh lasting Monday when he made a speech uh who that advised uh pregnant women not to use Tylenol, which is um known as paracetamol outside of America, uh saying that it's no good and that pregnant women should fight like hell to only take it in case of extreme fever. So obviously, this is a spot huge controversy within the pharmaceutical industry, and that medical experts have strongly pushed back on the claims with some calling the president's comments dangerous. Now, also in the UK, uh health officials have stressed that paracetamol remains the safest painkiller available to pregnant women. Now, for me, there's a couple of things on this, you know, uh pharmaceuticals and black people, and also the nature of the pharmaceutical industry. Yeah, and so when we look at what Trump is saying, Trump didn't say observe information, he has a health secretary who has advisors, so they would have got some. I'm just saying this because you know he wouldn't say off the cuff, and he says a lot of things, but you know, you don't say something like that without getting proof from your advisors and their advisors and their advisors, some of the people scientists. So for me, this brings up two things into question. Now, I'm gonna go down the line of pharmaceuticals and black people, particularly, yeah, because pharmaceuticals do not necessarily align with black people and their DNA. Now, you know, as a people, if you look at our history, up until about 100 years ago, if that we never use pharmaceuticals, you know, particularly in especially in places like America and the Caribbean and even the motherland continent, where we use natural uh medicinal herbs to uh heal ourselves. In actual fact, that's a father of medicine, not Hippocrates, right? Is actually nothing called Immotep. And in one of his treaties called the Ebus Papers, that was discovered, quote unquote, by Ebus. That's why it's called the Ebus Papers, but it's actually it actually should be called Imotepapers, Imotep, he had a cure using herbal uh treatments for more than 200 uh ailments from hypertension to diabetes to blood pressure to glaucoma. Yeah, so it tells that before the advent of Western medicine, yeah, African people globally were using medicinal plants to heal themselves, yeah. So, you know, that shows you that historically, right? We've never used pharmaceuticals up until recently, and that for all this time that we've been on the planet, which is thousands, millions, and even trillions of years, we've used medicinal plants to treat ourselves from various ailments that would beset us. So today, because of um you know uh miseducation from our part, misinformation as well, and not knowing our true culture as black people, African people, we are now taking pharmaceutical drugs to cure ourselves. So whether we have hypertension, whether we have um diabetes, whether we have um kidney issues, whether we've got, you know, if you've got a cold, etc., we are always using pills, yeah, to as opposed to medicine plants. Now, I'm not necessarily linking what Trump said, uh parasitable to autism, but what I will say is that, you know, for example, in the UK, black women are five times likely to die, yeah, during or after childbirth. Why is that the case? So if they are given our women all these pharmaceutical drugs, yeah, and we know that when you take a pharmaceutical drug, it has a side effect, which is why you get the pain, yeah, which is why you take things like you know, Tylenol or paracetamol to help ease the pain. So, what are they giving our women to make them five times likely to die during pregnancy after pregnancy? Is it the potency of the of the pharmaceutical drugs that is you know having a um you could say negative effect on the DNA of our women? Is it the fact that, like I said at the beginning, that pharmaceutical drugs do not align with the African body because we we have highly high melanin, high-grain melanin, and pharmaceutical drugs didn't necessarily sit well with melanin, yeah, or melanocytes, which is what produces melatonin, that produces the pigmentation that we got called melanin. Didn't sit well with that? Because another example, cocaine is a highly addictive substance, yeah. But with black people, because of our melanin, yeah, cocaine is even mixed more addictive. That's why when black people start taking taking cocaine, they get hooked on it more than any other group of people, yeah? Because cocaine and our melanin do not meet, do not align. And so, what I'm saying is this as a people, we need to be really, really circumspect on taking pharmaceutical drugs because at the end of the day, it's a big, it's the global multi-billion dollar industry. Yeah, so the people out there, you know, who may not have our best attention at heart will give us these pharmaceutical drugs, knowing possibly that they may kill us, or least case scenario, have some very, very bad side effects that could cause pain. That will make you again take more pharmaceutical in terms of painkillers, yeah. So, if that was not the case, and like I said, I want you to critically analyze, make a critical analysis of this issue. Why is it in the UK that black women are five times likely to die either during birth or after birth? Yeah, and given, as far as I'm aware, the same drugs as Caucasian, South Asian, Chinese, and Arab women. So, what is it about the drugs? Because there must be a link between the drugs and the fact that black women are dying giving birth, there must be a link somewhere. Because it doesn't happen to the other women of different races in the numbers that it does, and added to that, infantility is also a problem in America and also in the African continent. And we and we all take the same pharmaceutical drugs. So there must be, there must be, there has to be a link between some of these pharmaceutical drugs and our women dying during or after birth. Yeah. So what I want us to consider, I want us to, you know, to ponder about that. I want us to consider that. I want us to make a critical analysis, critical thinking of that viewpoint that pharmaceutical drugs do not align with our bodies and are responsible for a lot of side effects, including pain, and also, you know, a lot of imbalances that happen within our bodies. Now, second issue as to why as to why Trump will have said this is that obviously there's a there's an ongoing battle, yeah, between the pharmaceutical companies and this particular administration. Because Trump has put as Secretary of Health uh Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is anti-vax, and to a certain degree, he's also anti-pharmaceutical companies, because he has done a lot of work, rightly or wrongly, he's done a lot of work that links vaccines and pharmaceutical drugs to almoccy autism. Now, I'm not saying what he's saying is true. Don't don't don't you know don't say that I'm I'm I'm saying that. What I'm saying is that he has done some lot of research in the last 10, 15, 20 years that states, yeah, that there may be links between vaccines, yeah, pharmaceutical drugs, and issues to issues like autism and other ailments. So that goes totally against the grain of the pharmaceutical companies, which I can say is a multi-billion dollar industry. And so, you know, this is why you know medical experts in America and the UK and others have disputed the claims by Trump and also by RFK, stating that there's a link between um you know paracetamol and uh autism. But this, particularly in the UK, if you live in the UK, 20 years ago or before 2000, there are not many cases of autism in the UK. Now, autism is at record levels in the UK in children. So, what is that? What's all that about? Is it the environment in the UK? Or as I suspect, some of these some pharmaceutical drugs that are given to pregnant women. Because when women are pregnant, that's all they're given, they're given you know drugs, and we don't know the nature of the drugs, we don't know what the nature of these drugs are, what they're made of, the component of them, and particularly the potency of those drugs, which, like you said, has a more negative effect on black women than other women, which is why, in particular, I'm concerned about this issue whereby in the UK, black women are far some likely to die giving birth. I remember the same problem all over the black world, whether in the US, on the continent of Africa, in the Caribbean, the same things happen. And do you think it's a coincidence? Do you really believe it's a coincidence? I'm just putting, I want you to think, I'm putting it out there. Do you think it's a coincidence that there's high um mortality of our women globally in in the UK, in North America, in the Caribbean, Africa? You think it's a coincidence? So what Trump said, there may be a should have truth in that, but like I said, the whole thing for me is about this whole debate about pharmaceuticals as opposed to medicinal plants. So we know that these pharmaceutical drugs have side effects. Whether it's a parasitomole, whether it's um new briphomol, whether it's cococomo, where it's morphine, whatever, all these pharmaceutical drugs have side effects. But natural drugs, and and and this is where the the dichotomy is, because in the western media and western societies, they don't believe in medicinal plants. The Chinese do. You know, indigenous um, you know, uh communities around the world, you know, Amazonians, you know, uh indigenous groups in Southeast Asia, Malaysia, Indonesia, you know, they believe in traditional medicine. The Chinese, they have their own traditional medicine. If you if you live in the UK or US or Europe, right, you will see a lot of Chinese um medicine shops, you know, you know, up and down the place because they believe in their own indigenous Chinese medicine, which which which incidentally had its root in Africa. But that's for another time. So the Chinese people understand the power of medicine plants, yeah, for every ailment, whether it's diabetes, um, hypertension, you know, um cancers, what have you? They understand the power of their own medicine herbs. But what about we as African people, black people globally? Do we understand the power of medicinal medicine? Do we understand that that's more better for our DNA and more aligns of our melanin than pharmaceuticals? Or do we understand that? Do we understand that? Are we aware of that? Because, like I said, before the event of um Western medicine, we were using medicinal plants for trillions of years, and we never had any issues, we never had any um, you know, uh massive health problems the way we are now. So, you know, we need to make a distinction now what between what is in our best interest, and for me, you know, in wrapping up and closing up, you know, Trump is he may be an idiot, but he's not a fool. So there's there may be a shed of truth in what he has said between the link in this in this example between uh paracitamo and autism. But my whole thing is wrapped up in the fact that A, black women in the UK as a case study, are five times likely to die during or after birth, meaning that there's a link somewhere between this pharmaceutical drugs that our women have been given when they're pregnant during pregnancy, and the outcome of that, some of our women are dying, and then some are traumatized to the fact that they don't want any more children after that first experience, and two, I'm suggesting that we need to find alternatives, we can't rely on a system of Western pharmaceuticals and western drugs that have not been in our best interest, and that essentially kills us. Because don't forget, there's a book called Medical Apartheid. If you believe, if you didn't believe what I'm saying is true, history of Western medicine, go and read a book called Medical Apartheid, and you would understand that despite the fact that we live in a global world and that uh you know uh we all the same and what have you, right? It's not the case because medical apartheid would tell you of how systematic systemically the inequalities that we see in the African system, not just in in Britain, but in the whole Western world, has historical presence. Yeah, and so for me, the solution to, for example, our women dying giving birth, right, should be to give a natural way. And we need to do research ourselves as Africans into what medicine plants are best to give our women while they're pregnant and during their pregnancy and after their pregnancy. Yeah, because like I said, in your grandmother's time, in your great-grandmother's time, she was a woman, she got pregnant, she never used she never used pharmaceuticals, she used medicinal plants because medicinal plants align with our DNA and have no side effects, contrary to what you may hear, you know, in Western media, who often, because of their own uh ignorance as opposed to medicinal health or medicinal proper medicinal plants, they say that there's no circle scientific evidence that claim that medicinal plants are actually uh good and that they have uh the capacity to cure uh numerous ailments. So I'm gonna leave it there for now for you to make up your own mind and for you to make up your own research. Is Trump wrong or does he have a point? All right, so uh if you like what you hear, appreciate it to your friends, your family, social media networks, subscribe to Ghana African Focus on YouTube, subscribe to Ghana African Focus on uh Spotify. And like I said, you can also get us on the feed spot uh portal and who have compiled a list of the most popular podcasts in Ghana. Uh Ghana African Focus is in the top 20 of that list. So we thank you, all the listeners, particularly in Ghana, who have made uh Ghana African Focus one of the most popular and talked about podcasts in Ghana. And so thank you for listening. So for myself, Kwame, and from all the crew here on uh Ghana African Focus. Thank you very much for listening. And we'll see you in the next edition of Ghana Africa in Focus.