From CNN:
After the holiday is over, some Christmas trees end up in landfills, others get a second gig as garden mulch.
But soon thousands may end up as part of a lifesaving drug.
The needles of pine, spruce and fir trees contain a fairly high concentration of shikimic acid, the main ingredient in Tamiflu. Countries all over the world are stockpiling the drug in anticipation of a bird flu pandemic.
Most shikimic acid is obtained from star anise, a cooking spice from a tree grown in China. Prices of the spice skyrocketed when anxiety over a the possibility of a human outbreak of avian flu escalated.
A small Canadian company, Biolyse Pharma Corp., is now processing thousands of discarded trees to retrieve the acid.
"It's an urgent matter, and we should be starting production -- not once the pandemic hits, but before that," said chemist Brigitte Kiecken, Biolyse's CEO.
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