Consumer Reports (&FDA herb policy), TAM

[Guest guest]

Consumers Union/Reports is like Dr. Wolfe's group (the Nader spin-off that

publishes the " Best Pills, Worst Pills " newsletter). They both play a

watchdog function, trying to induce more safety in the " public's interest "

while sharing the basic premises of public phenomena which inherently

propagate dangerous excesses (i.e. consumerism, on the one hand, and

pharmaceutical medicine, on the other).

 

The BestPills/WorstPills people have been attacking the food supplement

market for a while also, seeking legislative action to have it regulated.

But they are, after all, MDs and pharmacologists, and wouldn't think to

question their own premises.

 

Having d to Consumer Reports earlier, I noticed that they spend of

a lot of effort reviewing things like soft drinks, recommending which

diet-coke/pepsi etc. is the (relative) best. Similarly, a nutrition

newsletter from the BestPills/WorstPills people lets you know which snack

foods are the (relative) safest.

 

At one point, Consumer Reports ran a cover story on the health/ergonomics

of home computer usage, with the cover picture showing an attractive model

sitting at a desk with her right shoulder and arm raised in using a

computer mouse at a high desk level. Anyone knowing anything about

ergonomic/health issues (I worked some 30 years in computer software, 20

years using the mouse) would recognize that the arm position depicted in

the cover picture virtually guarantees problems in the upper extremity, if

held repeatedly and for any length of time.

 

The point is that such groups are plagued by inherent hypocrisies, and

can't be effectively dealt with in terms of our concerns and interests. We

can only protect these through decisive political (and financial) influence

at the legislative level.

 

Another topic - " Traditional Asian Medicine " (TAM)

 

Aside from the ambiguity of language in the FDA ruling re MaHuang, I found

it noteworthy that they chose to use the term " Traditional Asian Medicine " .

Could it be that they are aware of the inherently political and

nationalistic meaning of the more common term " Traditional Chinese

Medicine " (TCM)?

 

I've been re-reading Dr. Kim Taylor's doctoral dissertation " Medicine of

Revolution: in Early Communist China (1945-1963). " A key

point of her thesis is that " TCM " , when it first appeared as translation

for ZhongYi, ca. 1955-1956, was specifically " promoting a particular form

of medicine capable of representing the goals and aims of the new regime

[the Chinese Communist Party]. " (p.137) And that this original intention

persists through the further development and into TCM today, as promoted by

the Chinese government primarily as an instrument of foreign and economic

policy.

 

For instance, a couple of years ago a major event in the TCM press coverage

in the USA was the visit by a delegation from the PRC. They visited San

Francisco, New York, other major cities, and, centrally, Washington D.C.

Most visits were with governmental institutions (e.g. the NIH) and

professional organizations, (e.g. the AAOM). The delegation consisted of

government officials and executives from drug/herb companies - no

clinicians, researchers or scholars.

 

There is some subtle awareness of the fundamentally political nature of TCM

in that most American associations have carefully chosen terms like AOM

(acupuncture and oriental medicine). But by and large, and more often than

not in the messages in this forum, TCM is assumed to refer to a range of

medical traditional ideas far beyond its actual intended meaning.

 

Dr. Taylor (p.144) suggests that TCM properly refers to that system of

Chinese medicine defined by:

" a) the institutional boundaries in which is functions [PRC governmental

entities, hospitals and schools]

b) the formulation of a 'basic theory of Chinese medicine' (zhongyi jichu

lulun)

c) the standardization of knowledge into a national curriculum of higher

education

d) its application within the primary health care system

e) its role as a valid medical system within the national health care

system and labor insurance scheme. "

 

She points out that Mao ZeDong's primary concern with respect to medicine

was to improve public health as a strategy for consolidating the political

system. Mao showed little interest in medicine, per se. His famous

inclusion of TCM in a list of " treasures of Chinese civilization " occurred

in the context of a general promotion of nationalistic values as part of

the consolidation of the regime in the mid 1950s. Given initially some

30,000 western style doctors, but upwards of 500,000 traditional

practitioners, an interim tactic was to mobilize the 500,000 within a " new "

system of traditional elements which was to evolve (and clearly still is)

into a modern, basically western style medicine (more specifically, a

" Chinese world medicine " ). TCM politics today, in the USA, Canada, Europe,

Australia, etc. clearly reflects this, with Chinese governmental operatives

exerting political influence and control in the efforts to institutionalize

TCM around the world.

 

My suspicion is that the FDA uses the term " Traditional Asian Medicine " in

light of the essentially political nature of " TCM " .

 

, L.Ac.