Word: shamanism
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...shaman inhaled the incense smoke and flicked flower petals into the tropical air. My husband and I were sitting on a patch of earth on the Indonesian island of Bali as the local priest, Ida Bagus Putu Wija, communed with the resident spirits about our vague plans to build a holiday home there. Eventually, the Balinese wise man gave us the news that would literally determine the shape of our future villa. In the parallel spirit world of this devoutly Hindu island, our peaceful stretch of riverbank was actually a bustling spirit town, far bigger than the nearby human village...
...some doctors end up filling out a lot of paperwork to comply with different insurance plans. The administrative costs often outweigh any financial benefit they see for pursuing improvements. "If health plans want physicians to participate, they'd be much better off collaborating beforehand to set norms," says Hindy Shaman, director of health industries for the consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. "Doctors won't waste their time if they have to fill out 20 different forms...
...jury is also still out on whether pay-for-performance plans ultimately benefit patients. On one hand, Shaman says that if doctors' performance measures were standardized and made available, patients could become better consumers of medicine. But, on the other, Neubauer worries that some patients could be denied necessary care under the new regime. "A doctor may just decide not to see a difficult patient who brings down his averages on certain measures," Neubauer says...
...drugs today are linked to the kinds of indigenous discoveries that make Brazilian catuaba bark a rain-forest version of Viagra for the herbal-supplement crowd. Two of Eli Lilly's more successful cancer drugs, Velban and Oncovin, were developed from Madagascar's rosy periwinkle plant, found through a shaman some 40 years ago. In the 1990s the two cancer drugs produced combined sales of $100 million a year. In September, Lilly, based in Indianapolis, Ind., agreed to pay up to $325 million to join San Diego's Amylin Pharmaceuticals in developing a potential diabetes treatment that owes its origins...
What, if anything, the participants hash out in Geneva will be closely watched as far away as Aska Aja, another Piaroa village upriver from Uruka Amahuaja. There, Royero recently met with a shaman, Jacinto Martinez, 62, whose wife had died hours earlier from an operable eye tumor. The tribe had no access to a surgeon--nor money to pay one. For years, Martinez has helped scientists identify plants near Aska Aja that treat everything from skin rashes to diarrhea. What he would like in return, he says, waving away flies from his wife's wrapped corpse, is some...