I t was too good to last. The honeymoon between the us -based Shaman Pharmaceuticals and 30 ethnic communities across Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia seems to be over. In February 1998, Provir, a promising anti-diarrhoeal drug based on ethnic medicinal knowledge, which Shaman was trying to develop for aids patients, was found to be wanting by the Food and Drug Administration ( fda ) of the us , which asked for more clinical trials.