Word: yam
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...lift the standard of living much above the bare minimums their populations had endured for years. Unable to do much for the people, the politicians unwisely did what they could for themselves. Dahomey's first President built a $3,000,000 palace; the Upper Volta's Yaméogo built himself a sumtuous country retreat with a swimming pool, while farmers still desperately seek water holes on the arid plains to keep their cattle from thirsting to death...
...Upper Volta, Lieut. Colonel Sangoule Lamizane, 50, ousted President Maurice Yaméogo after four days of demonstrations in the capital city of Quagadougou against a proposed 20% cut in government salaries...
...From the Yam. Syntex's own oral contraceptive, Norinyl, holds a relatively small share of the market, but Syntex also supplies the pill's basic compound to three other major pill makers: Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, and Parke, Davis. Though the pill has made Syntex famous, 59% of the company's sales and half its profits come from other drug products. These include other hormones used to treat skin inflammations and the ingredients of cortisone, a major drug for treatment of arthritic diseases...
...pill's hormones are derived mostly from a chemical called diosgenin, which until 1945 was obtainable only in small quantities from tropical plants. Then Dr. George Rosenkranz, at that time a Syntex research chemist, found that the Mexican yam, or barbasco root, yielded much larger amounts of diosgenin. In 1951 Syntex's Dr. Carl Djerassi first synthesized from it female sex hormones that women could swallow. Later it was discovered that the hormones were effective as an oral contraceptive. Syntex then began selling the compound to other drug firms, later introduced its own pill. Both Syntex and Searle...
...this year, Lyndon Johnson's foreign guests have included such dignitaries as Japan's Prime Minister Eisaku Sato, the Upper Volta's President Maurice Yaméogo, The Netherlands' Prince Bernhard, Britain's Prime Minister Harold Wilson (see cover story) and Canada's Prime Minister Lester Pearson, who annoyed the President during his U.S. visit by making a critical speech about the Johnson Administration's policy toward Viet...