The pandemic is boosting sellers of traditional medicine
Whether or not they work, herbal remedies are a healthy business
An economic downturn is a bad time to get sick, especially in poor countries. As conventional medicines become scarce and pricey, desperate patients turn to cheaper herbal remedies to treat even serious illnesses like diabetes, cancer and, these days, covid-19. Many doctors, of the scrub-wearing variety, doubt those treatments’ effectiveness. But the business of peddling them is in rude health.
This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “A concoction a day”
From the July 2nd 2022 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionMore from Business
Germans are world champions of calling in sick
It’s easy and it pays well
Knowing what your colleagues earn
The pros and cons of greater pay transparency
A $500bn investment plan says a lot about Trump’s AI priorities
It’s build, baby, build
Donald Trump’s America will not become a tech oligarchy
Reasons not to panic about the tech-industrial complex
OpenAI’s latest model will change the economics of software
The more reasoning it does, the more computer power it uses
Donald Trump once tried to ban TikTok. Now can he save it?
To keep the app alive in America, he must persuade China to sell up