This article proposes a discussion of the powers associated to humanitarian and indigenous remedies to preserve life as to provoke death. That the underlying principles of “ Médecins sans frontières ” (Doctors Without Borders) practices attribute it to a lack of pharmaceuticals or that the indigenous Madija-Kulina attribute it to the powers the shaman gains through the incorporation of certain plants, death permits the encounter of cosmopolitan biomedical knowledge and indigenous therapeutical knowledge in the common goal to defy it. Various testimonies related to the use of remedies have been collected in the context of an MSF-Holland project amongst indigenous populations of the Médio Solimões (Brazilian Amazonia) and serve as support to demonstrate the fragile borders between noxious and beneficial effects of remedies. The encounter of forms of curing constitutes a privileged moment to read the risks related to remedies.