That’s the way to go for region: Lebot

Dionisia Tabureguci
Seven years after Germany banned pharmaceutical products containing kava, one expert believes the market to supply Europe’s pharmaceutical industry is dead and the focus should now be put instead into supplying local and overseas drinking market.

Vincent Lebot, a Vanuatu-based kava scientist at the French research agency CIRAD (French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development), told ISLANDS BUSINESS the “big mess” Germany initially created has put this promising cash crop in a very bad light overseas, a damage that has “gone beyond repair”.

“Following the problems in Germay and the consumers scare, it is probable no one will take the risk to buy something under the name ‘kava’,” Lebot said.

“Kava per se (the form we drink in the Pacific) has never been consumed in Europe. Europeans use the word kava to designate extracts produced in Europe from imported dried parts of the plant. Once it is dried, there is no way to tell if it is truly Piper methysticum (scientific name for kava plant) or not and Europeans didn’t really know what they were importing and buying.

“Before the 2001 kava ban, European companies purchased dried matter (including peelings) and processed it into various products which are, from a scientific point of view, very different from kava itself.

"Surprisingly, it is on so-called “scientific” grounds that the reputation of kava as a safe natural product has been challenged by European health institutions.

“These institutions were in fact referring to extracts of all sorts manufactured in Europe but not kava,” said Lebot. 
In what is now a widely known affair, German health authorities banned kava containing products in 2001 after it claimed kava was linked to liver damage. This was despite a disclaimer later that year from the German Institute for Drugs and Medicinal Products confirming that: “it is not known whether the substance considered as the active ingredients or other components which are also contained in the plant extracts that are responsible for the adverse effects”.

Other European countries—United States, Canada and Japan— soon followed suit, damaging an emerging flourishing kava export industry in Vanuatu, Tonga, Samoa and Fiji—the main producers in the Pacific of raw materials for Europe’s pharmaceutical market.

“The start of the so-called hepatotoxicity problems occurred in Europe after the ‘1998 kava boom’ here in Vanuatu when prices were very high,” said Lebot. 

“Before 1998, millions of doses of the extracts were sold, including in Germany without any apparent side effects. For more than 20 years, the drug ‘kavaise’ was sold in France and consumers were refunded by the National Health Scheme when purchasing this drug that was proven safe by French institutions (production had to cease in 1994 due to non sufficient and irregular supplies).

“If something went wrong in 1998, it would appear interesting to pinpoint the origin of the problem. For those extracts which are suspected of hepatotoxicity, it is necessary to trace the nature and the origin of the raw material purchased. Was it truly Piper methysticum or were other plants species involved?  Were illegal varieties of kava used (ie: ‘two day’ kavas)? Were peelings purchased, although they are dangerous by-products containing alkaloids and other toxins?"

A German company called Schawbe was producing an acetone extract called WS1490 and used in the drug Laitan 100) which had been implicated in several reports of hepatotoxicity. 

“This company, like many others, was first of all interested in the kavalactone content of the dried raw material purchased, the higher the better of course. Following its own logic, this company was purchasing raw material from various uncontrolled sources and subcontracting growers to cultivate varieties known to be early maturing, high yielding and rich in kavalactones.

According to the Schawbe scientists, the fact that these so-called ‘two days’ varieties were unfit for human consumption was not a problem. Their main target was, first of all, the highest active ingredient content. European health authorities claimed the products manufactured in Europe from imported dry matter were dangerous for their consumers.

“There is no reason why we should doubt their professional conclusions. They are simply saying that companies in Europe were manufacturing and selling dangerous products on the European market. It would be fair, however, that they acknowledge officially they are not referring to kava so that their professionalism is not questioned. They are referring to products made out of uncontrolled raw materials, imported under the name kava and processed into extracts. 

“Caffeine in capsules is not coffee, it is caffeine. What European companies were selling was not kava, it was something else. It is this ‘something else’ which has been implicated in liver toxicity.”
Lebot, a kava drinker himself, said kava, on scientific grounds, is not dangerous and there was no need to ban it. 

“Considering the mess the Europeans have generated, we can say the pharmaceutical and nutraceutical markets are dead.

“In the US, the insurance liabilities are so high that local companies don’t want to take the risk to promote kava. The liabilities are very high because of the mess in Europe. In fact, Pacific leaders should ask the EU to compensate the Pacific for the misuse of the name ‘kava’ while they were in fact referring to something else.  They have produced such a bad advertising that everyone around the world thinks that kava is dangerous.”

Target drinking market: Lebot said the Pacific now should be looking at developing quality standards for kava and target the beverage market instead of pinning its hope on a failed pharmaceutical market.

“What the Pacific has to do is to develop international quality standards for kava and impose them to the world, then explain to the Europeans that they are wrong. When they call their toxic products ‘kava’, they are misusing the word. Then the Pacific has to develop new markets for beverage, for kava, not for extracts.

“The economic potential is in the beverage and although the market is dead in Europe and in the US for extracts, the Pacific has to start from scratch, from zero and build an industry based on the quality of a local product called kava. 

“So even if the Europeans have damaged the reputation of the name, it does not matter, their market is small and the Pacific should look at new markets with high local quality products.  It is going to take work and sweat and a lot of efforts. Is the Pacific ready for this? Or is it again waiting for its salute to come from elsewhere? And for easy money?

"The industry in the Pacific should start working on a product showing to the world that kava is safe and what the Europeans have done is wrong. 

“If the Pacific countries were smart, they could even ask for compensation for the damage caused to the word kava by European companies who misused the word to designate their toxic products.

“Kava is a prestigious and good product and the South Pacific should, on scientific grounds, be proud of it,” Lebot said.  

He said the problem in the Pacific was the quality of kava and if all stakeholders got together and worked on that, the crop will become a very important export product for the region.

“The kava industry is now exhibiting all the symptoms of an industry that has grown too rapidly, without taking time to elaborate quality standards and control procedures.

"These will have to be implemented urgently at different levels: local, regional and international, in order to avoid further difficulties. Many children in Vanuatu and Fiji continue to go to school because their parents can sell kava to pay for their school fees but how long will this last?

"The industry needs good products. European extracts were not good products and at present, the quality is deteriorating rapidly in Vanuatu where ‘laissez faire’ is ‘de rigueur’. 

“The cultural importance of kava in Vanuatu is comparable to the importance of wine in European culture. Europeans know pretty well that wine abuse is dangerous and there is a constant search for improving the quality and educating consumers. 

“Unfortunately, there is no such approach in Vanuatu where cultural erosion is ongoing. Until now, the production and sale of kava have developed without any public intervention. All the members of the chain, and especially a very large number of small producers, have been encouraged by the profitability of the business.

“In years to come, the pursuit of this expansion will depend on the quality and regularity. Kava and greed cannot live together.”

The butchering of the name “kava” by the Germans now cost the Pacific an accumulated loss of roughly over US$1 billion in export revenue losses since 2001.