Laveaga, Gabriela Soto Jungle
Laboratories: Mexican Peasants, National Projects, and the Making of the Pill.
Durham: Duke University Press, 2009.
Jungle
Laboratories: Mexican Peasants, National Projects, and the Making of the Pill by Gabriela Sota Laveaga traces the political, economic,
and scientific development of the global barbasco industry from its 1950s-boom
years, to the decline in the latter part of the twentieth century. A wild yam
that invasively grows in rural areas of southern Mexico, barbasco and its
extract, diosgenin, made possible the mass production of steroid hormones like
progesterone and cortisone, and leading to the manufacture of oral
contraceptives. Despite their elite knowledge of and manual labor harvesting
the root, it was many years before Mexican peasants understood the financial
and scientific value of barbasco. The scientific community’s reliance on rural
Mexican’s knowledge upended a social hierarchy that had been in place for
hundreds of years. Eventually rural Mexicans were able to utilize their
scientific knowledge to mediate with transnational pharmaceutical companies, to
approach the Mexican government for terms, and to alter how they were regarded
by urban Mexicans.
A
commodity chain analysis is a way of isolating and identifying aspects of
historical change along the route that the commodity takes from production to
consumption. In the case of barbasco, the commodity chain begins when Mexican
peasants harvest the barbasco root from southern Mexico. Initially, picking the
barbasco root was a form of ancillary income for the peasants. If peasants
happened to see barbasco growing on their way home then they would pick it up.
However, as the demand for barbasco grew, up to 25,000 families or 100,000
individuals would make a living by harvesting the barbasco root. The jungle
conditions where barbasco grew were hazardous. Barbasco pickers reported
venomous snakes and swarms of insects, not to mention the hot, tropical
environment. In addition, the dangers of machetes were notorious, as the long,
sharp knives were used constantly to clear the dense jungle flora.
Once
picked and removed from the jungle, the commodity chain of barbasco moved to
collection sites where the root would undergo basic chemical changes by
fermentation and drying. The resulting barbasco flour had to be spread out over
concrete slabs and dried by the sun. The flour also needed to be agitated to
ensure consistent drying. Once dried, the barbasco flour was packed and shipped
to laboratories in other parts of Mexico, the United States, and Europe.
Laboratories
and scientists continued the chemical processes to yield diosgenin. Diosgenin
is the precursor of steroid hormones like progesterone and cortisone.
Progesterone was the original basis for oral contraceptives, which put Mexico
on the map in the steroid hormone industry. Employed by Syntex, one Mexico’s
leading pharmaceutical companies, Luis Ernesto Miramontes was able to
synthesize an orally efficient progesterone contraceptive. The Pill
revolutionized population control by allowing female reproductive systems to
avoid contraception. The rural Mexican peasants had no idea that the barbasco
they picked and sold to middlemen was turned into a pill used globally by
millions of women.
The
abundant availability of raw barbasco in Mexico made it possible for Mexican
chemists and technicians to generate original and significant scientific
research. Studying a plant that was innately Mexican inspired a sense of
nationalism. Mexico created an entire industry around barbasco, with
laboratories and other facilities created specifically for steroid hormone use.
Mexican scientific nationalism can also be seen at the lowest rung of
barbasco’s commodity chain. Barbasco pickers and campesinos were all proud of
barbasco and their work, even when they did not understand why international
companies demanded the weed. Fidel Santiago Hernández proudly described how he
had been hired as a “chemist” at a barbasco processing plant. Many Mexicans
viewed employment in the barbasco industry as a secure, dignified, and esteemed
occupation.
Amidst the barbasco boom, the United
States as a scientific and pharmacological stronghold had to contend with
Mexico and its emerging competence in science, as well as the only place where
barbasco proliferated. Even when Syntex was sold to a United States company,
the barbasco root was still grown in Mexico and, increasingly, regulated by the
Mexican government. United States’ expansionism became a question of legal
matters, like patents, and not territory. Mexican presidents Miguel Alemán and
Adolfo Ruiz Cortines both issued protectionist measures and legislation to
protect the economy surrounding barbasco. Foreign demand for barbasco permits
ushered in the Mexican government’s domestic laboratory, Farquinal, responsible
for the manufacture of diosgenin.
Several
factors surrounding barbasco changed throughout its medicinal demand and
subsequent decline including agriculture and economics. With regards to
agriculture, in the beginning of the barbasco boom peasants left a part of the
root in the ground for regeneration. Combined with the slash and burn
agricultural technique, barbasco continued to flourish. However, towards the
end of the barbasco boom fewer pickers would leave even the smallest pieces of
the root in the ground. Many in Mexico wondered if the barbasco would last. The
Commission for the Study of the Ecology of Dioscoreas was a research group
funded by transnational pharmaceutical companies in collaboration with the
Mexican government and Mexican scientists to regulate and obtain information on
barbasco and its ecology. Foreign companies understood the importance of
researching barbasco in order to ensure the continued supply of the scientific-
and financially-valuable raw material. This led to the change in economics by
Mexico establishing Proquivemex, the parastatal company intended to challenge
transnational pharmaceutical companies and protect campesinos. Proquivemex was
established in 1975 during the administration of populist president Luis
Echeverría Álvarez.
Echeverría
had high hopes for Proquivemex. Ideally Proquivemex and its jungle laboratories
would serve as the link between Mexican peasants who harvested barbasco and the
transnational pharmaceutical companies who needed diosgenin. Within ten years,
Echeverría planned to produce medicines at a fair price for all Mexican
citizens. Another goal was that the middlemen of the barbasco industry would
one day have a significant role in the company and control of barbasco production.
However, when Echeverría left office, Proquivemex was beset with a funding
crisis and dwindling interest, especially from the new administration. The
jungle laboratories were abandoned and the barbasco industry in Mexico dried
up.
Diosgenin-filled
arbasco still grows in the jungle region of southern Mexico and the legacy of
the barbasco boom years still lives on. Barbasco created the development of the
steroid hormone industry and paved the way for Mexico to become a major factor
in the global pharmaceutical industry. However, the failures of Echeverría’s
populist regime and the social issues surrounding Mexican peasants and
harvesting barbasco, as well as new scientific sources of steroid hormones, led
to the weed’s subsequent medicinal decline and demand.
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