Tea Dragon Films is First Adopter in the American Botanical Council’s New Adopt-An-Herb Program
The
American Botanical Council (ABC) has officially launched its Adopt-an-Herb
program, following Tea
Dragon Films’ adoption of tea (Camellia sinensis). For the next
three years, Tea Dragon Films will provide ABC financial support to ensure that
abstracts (summaries) of the latest published scientific and clinical research
on tea are made available within ABC’s HerbMedPro database, one of the most
robust and powerful herbal databases and research tools on the Internet.
Tea
Dragon Films’ adoption is in honor of its new film The
Meaning of Tea, a 74-minute documentary that investigates the
different beliefs, practices, and cultural traditions surrounding tea in eight
countries: England, France, India,
Ireland, Japan, Morocco,
Taiwan, and the United States.
Directed by Scott Chamberlin Hoyt, the film uses a mix of interviews, music,
and stunning visual elements to explore the fascinating world of tea. From tea
rituals in cultures where tea is cherished, to those who mold the very
instruments used to carry and serve tea, the film asks a variety of characters
around the world about their relationship to tea as a beverage, a means of
relaxation, and for many a way of life. The film has been shown at various film
festivals and industry and professional conferences, and copies can be
purchased at the company’s Web
site.
“ABC
is deeply grateful to Scott Hoyt and Tea Dragon Films for being the very first
to adopt an herb and providing such excellent support of the HerbMedPro
database,” said Mark Blumenthal, ABC’s founder and executive director. “Their
support furthers ABC’s efforts to expand HerbMedPro into an even more useful
education and research tool.”
By
adopting tea, Tea Dragon Films is supporting ABC’s ongoing efforts to collect
and disseminate reliable traditional and science-based information on herbs,
medicinal plants, and other plant-based ingredients. The Adopt-an-Herb program
encourages companies and individuals to “adopt” one or more specific herbs
within, or for inclusion in, the HerbMedPro database. Each adopted herb will be
researched monthly for newly-published research and updated as needed. The
result is that consumers, researchers, health practitioners, educators, media,
government agencies, members of industry, journalists, and others can use
HerbMedPro via ABC’s information-rich Web site to access the latest scientific
and clinical publications on the adopted herbs.
HerbMedPro
is now operated through a partnership between the Alternative Medicine
Foundation and ABC. HerbMedPro is an interactive, impartial, and evidence-based
herbal database that provides hyperlinked access to freely-available abstracts
of scientific and clinical publications on 220 commonly used medicinal herbs.
Herb records in HerbMedPro vary in size from those with a very large amount of
published data, such as ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba), with over 1,000
summarized entries and links, to Acacia catechu (cutch tree or black
catechu in the pea family, Fabaceae), with fewer than 50.
HerbMedPro
has a free “sister” site, HerbMed, which features 20-30 herbs from HerbMedPro
that are rotated onto this site on a regular basis. This site is available at
no cost to the public, thereby increasing the number of people benefitting from
updated information on adopted herbs.
All
adopters will be recognized by ABC for helping to promote ABC’s nonprofit
educational mission and for helping to ensure that up-to-date herbal
information on their adopted herb is readily accessible to the general public.
This recognition will take place on ABC’s Web
site, www.herbalgram.org, and in its publications, including ABC’s
quarterly, peer-reviewed journal HerbalGram.
More
information on the benefits of ABC’s Adopt-an-Herb program is available from Denise Meikel, ABC’s development director, or by
calling 512-926-4900 x 120.