Thursday, October 24, 2013

Cockroach가 암,뼈종양 퇴치 약품원료로, 미용식으로 사용되다니.....

"Cockroach" 를 연상하면 혐오스럽고, 몸을 나도 모르게 움추리게 한다.  오래전 아주 오래된 아파트에 살때에는 수도 셀수 없을 정도로 카크로치와 싸우면서 쫓고 쫓기는 씨름을 한 기억이 새롭게 떠오른다.  한번은 한창더운 여름 한낯에 밥에 물을 부어서 한술 뜨고 있는데 뭐가 풍덩 밥그릇속으로 떨어지는게 아닌가.  바로 카크로치 한마리가 천장에 있다가 떨어져 정통으로 나뿐만이 아니고 같이 밥을 먹고 있던 Lunar까지도 기겁을 하게 만들고, 결국 점심을 망치고 밥상을 그만 치운 기억도 있다.

가끔씩은 TV뉴스에 카크로치가 아파트에 기승을 부리는 장면을 보여주고, 이의 박멸을 위해 당국에서 살충제를 사용하여 퇴치하느라 분주히 움직이는 모습을 보곤 했었던 기억도 나고, 이뉴스를 본 사람들은 몸서리를 치곤 했었다.

카크로치에 대한 방송이나 신문기사가 나올때마다, 난 항상 생각 했었다.  내가 만약에 유명한 과학자였다면, TV 대담에 나와 "카크로치는 우리가 혐오스럽게 생각해 오던 그런 병균이 득실 거리는 해충이 아니고, 실제로는 허약체질을 튼튼하게 하는 영양제로, 특히 남성들 정력제로는 최고의 보약입니다"라고 설파하면 금방 카크로치 박멸은 물론이고, 돈도 무척 벌어 들일수 있을 것이다 라고.

지구상에 존재 해서는 안될 흉물과 병균을 옮기는 첫째 골치거리로 여겨지던 Cockroach가 중국에서는 현재 영양식으로, 미용식으로 대머리의 발모를 촉진하는 의약품으로 가공되여, 이를 전문적으로 배양하는 농장들이 우후죽순처럼 생겨나고 있다는 뉴스는 과히 천지개벽할 세상의 변화를 실감케 하고 있다.  마치 나의 망상이 현실로 태어난것 같은 충격이다.

중국인들은 카크로치를 Roasting해서 이를 땅콩먹듯이 즐겨 먹고,  어떤이들은 식당에서 식사를 할때 별도로 roasting한 로치를 준비해서 같이 먹는다고 한다.

경험이 있는 농장주는 한파운드에 $20 달러씩에 팔고 있다고 한다.  2010년 그가 처음 이사업을 시작했을때는 파운드당 겨우 $2달러 였는데,수요가 급증하여 즐거운 비명을 지르며, 백만장자가 되는것은 시간문제일뿐이라고 자부심이 대단하다.

이농장은 한때는 양계장이었으나, 지금은 완전히 로치 배양농장으로 바뀌어 수백만 마리의 로치를 기를고 있다.   설비도 가축 키울때 처럼 많이 필요치 않고, 양철조각에 달걀담는 카툰을 같이 묶어서 그속에서 배양 시키면 그것으로 끝이다.

농장주인 왕부밍은 무릎을 꿇더니 한장의 로치서식 플레이트를 꺼내본다.  득실거리는 로치들이 나타난다. 이들은  빛을 싫어 해서 금새 빛이 안비치는 뒷면쪽을 향해 사라진다.  혐오스럽지만, 그는 전부 돈이되는 것이라고 싱글벙글이다.

탐방자들이 상을 찡그리고 섬뜻해 하자  하나도 걱정할게 없다라고 안심시키는사이, 로치들은 천장이곳 저곳을 활보하고 있다.

그의 고객은 주로 아시아 지역의 제약회사들이다.  로치는 담백질의 보고라고 했다. 또한 로치의 날개는 셀루로스 대체품으로 으뜸이라고 했다.  왕의 농장은  수천만 마리의 로치를 키우고, 중국에서 제일 큰 농장이기도 하지만, 세계에서도 제일 큰 농장일것이라고 전문가들은 보고 있다한다.

로치도 여러 종류가 있는데, 그가 선호하는 로치 종류는 북미산 로치로써  황갈색이고 완전히 자랐을때는 길이가 1.6인치나 되고, 또 잘 날아다닐수 있는 날개가 있어, 몸둥이가 적고, 날개도 없어 날지 못하는 독일산에 비해 아주 선호되는 로치라고 한다.

돼지사육은 경쟁도 심하고, 따라서 이윤도 무척 박하지만, 로치농장은 그럴 경쟁이나 위험이 거의 없다는 것이다.  $3.25달러를 투자해서 $11 달러의 수익을 올리는 이사업이야 말로 투자가치가 분명하다고 설명한다.

현재 중국에는 금새 소문이 퍼져약 100개의 로치 농장이 있다고 한다.  그러나 로치농장이라는 슬로건을 밖에 내걸고 하는 사람들은 거의 없다고 한다.  사람들 생각에 혐오감을 주는것으로 보이기 때문이었다.  지난 8월달에 한농장에서 잘못취급하여 수백만 마리의 로치가 탈출하여 인근지역으로 도망치는 통에, 세상에 알려지게 됐었다.  심지어는 성경에 나오는 말세떼에는 메뚜기때들이 온통 세상을 뒤덮을거라는 그예언의 말씀이 현실로 나타난것이 아닌가? 할정도로, 갑작스런 로치의 출현으로  중국 언론에 대서특필 되기까지 했었다.

상품으로 팔기위한 가공도 무척 간단하다.  로치들이 살고 있는  Nest를 뽑아내 큰 백(Vat)에 로치들을 털어 채우고 끓는물에 넣고 삶은 다음, 뜨거운 햇볕에 고추를 말리듯이 말리면 끝이다.

현재 5개 중국제약회사가 이사업에 손을 대고 있으며, 중국의 Dali대학교의 약학대학과 한국의 전남농촌진흥청이 공동으로 로치가루를 이용하여 대머리의 모발증식과 AIDS와 Cancer
그리고 비타민 영양제에 대한 연구를 활발히 하고 있으며, 이들은 로치를 이용한 항암효과 연구를 언론에 발표 하기도 했다.

카크로치 연구의 대부로 불리는 78세의 Li Shunan교수는 1960년대초에 월남과의 접경지역에 사는 소수민족들이 뼈의 종양을 치료하기위해 로치로 만든 연고를 사용하는것을 발견 했었다고 보고 하기도 했다.

"Cockroach는 이런 질병으로 부터 강하게 살아남는 이유와, 왜 로치는 방사능오염에 저항을 잘 하는지? 무엇이 이렇게 그들을 강하게 하는지를 연구해야 한다고 생각한다"라고 그는 주장한다.

농장주 Wang Fuming은 농장을 방문한 기자들을 포함한 방문자들이 로치에 혐오감을 느껴 먹어 볼려고 시도를 하지 않는것에 대해 "언젠가는 왜 그때 시도를 안했었지?"라고 평생을 후회하게  될것이라고 언급하기도 했다.

생각지도 않은 엉뚱한 곳에서 재물을 모으는 사람들이 있고, 보기에 혐오스러워 사람들이 가장 싫어 하는 곤충류에서 최고의 약품원료를 채집하는 그런 발상의 끝은 계속해서 이어질것 같다.  로치로 부터 채집된 원료로 암치료약과 방사능 면역제 그리고 대머리 치료제가 만들어져 보편적으로 사용할때쯤에는 지구상에는 로치가 오직 배양되고 있는 농장에서만 서식하는 그날이 곧 올것 같은 예감이 든다.  엄청난 변화일것이다.

로치때문에 진절머리를 내는 북미 대륙을 포함한 전서방 세계에 사는 사람들의 반응이 어떻게 나올지 궁금해지기도 한다.



http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-c1-china-cockroach-20131015-dto,0,4704825.htmlstory



Cockroach farms multiplying in China


Dried cockroaches are ready to be sold to pharmaceutical companies from a farm in Jinan, China. One farmer says the insects are easy to raise and profitable.

Farmers are pinning their future on the often-dreaded insect, which when dried goes for as much as $20 a pound — for use in Asian medicine and in cosmetics.

Oct. 15, 2013
This squat concrete building was once a chicken coop, but now it's part of a farm with an entirely different kind of livestock — millions of cockroaches.
Inside, squirming masses of the reddish-brown insects dart between sheets of corrugated metal and egg cartons that have been tied together to provide the kind of dark hiding places they favor.
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Wang Fuming kneels down and pulls out one of the nests. Unaccustomed to the light, the roaches scurry about, a few heading straight up his arm toward his short-sleeve shirt.
"Nothing to be afraid of," Wang counsels visitors who are shrinking back into the hallway, where stray cockroaches cling to a ceiling that's perilously close overhead.
Although cockroaches evoke a visceral dread for most people, Wang looks at them fondly as his fortune — and his future.
The 43-year-old businessman is the largest cockroach producer in China (and thus probably in the world), with six farms populated by an estimated 10 million cockroaches. He sells them to producers of Asian medicine and to cosmetic companies that value the insects as a cheap source of protein as well as for the cellulose-like substance on their wings.
The favored breed for this purpose is the Periplaneta americana, or American cockroach, a reddish-brown insect that grows to about 1.6 inches long and, when mature, can fly, as opposed to the smaller, darker, wingless German cockroach.
Since Wang got into the business in 2010, the price of dried cockroaches has increased tenfold, from about $2 a pound to as much as $20, as manufacturers of traditional medicine stockpile pulverized cockroach powder.
"I thought about raising pigs, but with traditional farming, the profit margins are very low," Wang said. "With cockroaches, you can invest 20 yuan and get back 150 yuan," or $3.25 for a return of $11.
China has about 100 cockroach farms, and new ones are opening almost as fast as the prolific critters breed. But even among Chinese, the industry was little known until August, when a million cockroaches got out of a farm in neighboring Jiangsu province. The Great Escape made headlines around China and beyond, evoking biblical images of swarming locusts.

Big moneymaker

Business is booming at the Shandong Xin Da Ground Beetle Farm.
Only the prospect of all those lost earnings would faze Wang, a compact man with a wisp of a mustache and wire-rim glasses who looks like a scientist, but has no more than a high school education. After graduating, he went to work in a tire factory.
"I felt I would never get anywhere in life at the factory and I wanted to start a business," he said.
As a boy he had liked collecting insects, so he started with scorpions and beetles, both used in traditional medicine and served as a delicacy. One batch of his beetle eggs turned out to be contaminated with cockroach eggs.
"I was accidentally raising cockroaches and then I realized they were the easiest and most profitable," he said.
The start-up costs are minimal — Wang bought only eggs, a run-down abandoned chicken coop and the roofing tile. Notoriously hearty, roaches aren't susceptible to the same diseases as farm animals. As for feeding them, cockroaches are omnivores, though they favor rotten vegetables. Wang feeds his brood with potato and pumpkin peelings discarded from nearby restaurants.
Killing them is easy too: Just scoop or vacuum them out of their nests and dunk them in a big vat of boiling water. Then they're dried in the sun like chile peppers.
Perhaps understandably, the cockroach business ("special farming," as it is euphemistically called) is a fairly secretive industry. Wang's farm, for instance, operates in an agribusiness industrial park under an elevated highway. The sign at the front gate simply reads Jinan Hualu Feed Co.
Some companies that use cockroaches don't like to advertise their "secret ingredient." And the farmers themselves are wary of neighbors who might not like a cockroach farm in their backyard.
"We try to keep a low profile," said Liu Yusheng, head of the Shandong Insect Industry Assn., the closest thing there is to a trade organization. "The government is tacitly allowing us to do what we do, but if there is too much attention, or if cockroach farms are going into residential areas, there could be trouble."
Liu worries about the rapid growth of an industry with too many inexperienced players and too little oversight. In 2007, a million Chinese lost $1.2 billion when a firm promoting ant farming turned out to be a Ponzi scheme and went bankrupt.
"This is not like raising regular farm animals or vegetables where the Agricultural Ministry knows who is supposed to regulate it. Nobody knows who is in charge here," he said.
The low start-up costs make raising cockroaches an appealing business for wannabe entrepreneurs, who can buy cockroach eggs and complete how-to kits from promoters.
"People laughed at me when I started, but I always thought that cockroaches would bring me wealth," said Zou Hui, 40, who quit her job at a knitting factory in 2008 after seeing a television program about raising cockroaches.

Wang Fuming, at his farm in Jinan, is the largest cockroach producer in China (and thus probably in the world), with six farms populated by an estimated 10 million cockroaches.
It's not exactly a fortune, but the $10,000 she brings in annually selling cockroaches is decent money for her hometown in rural Sichuan province, and won her an award last year from local government as an "Expert in Getting Wealthy."
"Now I'm teaching four other families," Zou said. "They want to get rich like me."
But inexperienced farmers can get into trouble, as Wang Pengsheng (no relation to fellow roach farmer Wang) found out after his cockroaches staged the Great Escape.
He had opened his farm just six months earlier in a newly constructed building that municipal code officials complained was too close to protected watershed land. At noon on Aug. 20, while workers were out for lunch, a demolition crew knocked down the building. The roaches made a run for it.
"They didn't know I had cockroaches in there. They wouldn't have demolished the building like that if there were cockroaches that would get out," Wang Pengsheng said in a telephone interview.
After discovering the flattened building and homeless roaches scurrying among the rubble, he tried to corral the escapees but was unsuccessful. He called in local health officials, who helped him exterminate the roaches. Wang said he has received about $8,000 in compensation from local government and hopes to use the money to rebuild his farm elsewhere.
At least five pharmaceutical companies are using cockroaches for traditional Chinese medicine. Research is underway in China (and South Korea) on the use of pulverized cockroaches for treating baldness, AIDS and cancer and as a vitamin supplement. South Korea's Jeonnam Province Agricultural Research Institute and China's Dali University College of Pharmacy have published papers on the anti-carcinogenic properties of the cockroach.
Li Shunan, a 78-year-old professor of traditional medicine from the southwestern province of Yunnan who is considered the godfather of cockroach research, said he discovered in the 1960s that ethnic minorities near the Vietnamese border were using a cockroach paste to treat bone tuberculosis.
"Cockroaches are survivors," Li said. "We want to know what makes them so strong — why they can even resist nuclear effects."

Liu Yusheng, head of the Shandong Insect Industry Assn. eats fried cockroaches. Liu worries about the rapid growth of an industry with too many inexperienced players and too little oversight.
Li reels off an impressive, if implausible, list of health claims: "I lost my hair years ago. I made a spray of cockroaches, applied it on my scalp and it grew back. I've used it as a facial mask and people say I haven't changed at all over the years.
"Cockroaches are very tasty too."
Many farmers are hoping to boost demand by promoting cockroaches in fish and animal feed and as a delicacy for humans.
Chinese aren't quite as squeamish as most Westerners about insects — after all, people here still keep crickets as pets.
In Jinan, Wang Fuming and his wife, who run the farm together, seem genuinely fond of their cockroaches and a little hurt that others don't feel affection.
"What is disgusting about them?" Li Wanrong, Wang's wife, asked as a roach scurried around her black leather pumps. "Look how beautiful they are. So shiny!"
Over lunch at a restaurant down the block from his farm, Wang placed a plate of fried cockroaches seasoned with salt on the table along with more conventional cuisine, and proceeded to nibble a few with his chopsticks. He expressed disapproval that visiting journalists refused to sample the roaches.
On saying goodbye at the end of the day, he added a final rejoinder.
"You will regret your whole life not trying them."
Nicole Liu in The Times' Beijing bureau contributed to this report.

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