Al Gore og træer

Nogle skriver om Al Gore og hans udsagn om at der går 3 træer på et menneskeliv.

Det drejer sig om at man udvinder stoffet ‘Taxol’ fra træet Taxus Chinensis. Stoffet bruges i kræft-behandling.

.Citatet er fra Al Gores bog Earth in the Balance (pp. 105-106), og det vedrører et nyt medikament ved navn taxol, der kunne bruges i kampen mod kræft.”

Udsagnet er lige så fjollet, som Gores tidligere udsagn om at “han opfandt Internet”.

Dels er Taxol så giftigt, at man hurtigst muligt vil finde derivater af stoffet eller alternativer – og istedet for at udvinde det af træer selvfølgelig bruger celle-kulturer, som udover opstarten ikke bruger et eneste træ:

 J Chromatogr A. 2006 May 20:

Large-scale purification of 13-dehydroxybaccatin III and 10-deacetylpaclitaxel, semi-synthetic precursors of paclitaxel, from cell cultures of Taxus chinensis.
Pyo SH, Choi HJ, Han BH.
Samyang Genex Food & Bio Research Center, 63-2 Hwaam-Dong, Yuseong-Gu, Daejeon 305-717, South Korea; Department of Chemistry, Chungnam National University, 220 Gung-Dong, Yuseong-Gu, Daejeon 305-764, South Korea.
The taxane derivatives 13-dehydroxybaccatin III (13-DHB III) and 10-deacetylpaclitaxel (10-DAP) can be used as semi-synthetic precursors of paclitaxel. These precursors were isolated in a simple and economical procedure during purification of paclitaxel from plant cell culture extracts. No additional costs for cell culture or extraction by silica-gel low-pressure chromatography were incurred. Precipitation from dichloromethane/n-hexane followed by HPLC on ODS and silica-gel resins resulted in paclitaxel of 99.5% purity with 80% overall yield. ODS low-pressure chromatography and THF/n-hexane precipitation yielded 13-dehydroxybaccatin III at >99% purity with 87.1% overall yield, and ODS low-pressure chromatography alone yielded 10-deacetylpaclitaxel at >90% purity with 93.4% overall yield. These compounds are of sufficient purity for use in semi-synthesis of paclitaxel. Both compounds were obtained in high yield at >99.5% purity using ODS-HPLC. The procedures described allow the simultaneous purification of 13-dehydroxybaccatin III, 10-deacetylpaclitaxel, and paclitaxel with only minimal additional expense for reagents or equipment.
PMID: 16716338 [PubMed – as supplied by publisher]

Al Gore er lige så useriøs i dette udsagn som i dette om Bjørn Lomborg – men træer er vel lige så gode i den politiske korrektheds navn som baby-sæler når man er på stemmefiskeri.