The future of Chinese Herbal Medicine in the West?

January 8, 2005

Phil

The subject matter should be more inclusive regarding the future of ALL of CM

whether herbs or any of the modalities under oriental medicine.

As always there is the legal arena but only when handled by those who know

how to accomplish key tasks (usually NOT the majority of lawyers).

The other important component is the practitioners and suppliers who MUST

come together to finance such a legal stance.

Here in the USA.....CODEX can be stopped dead in it's tracks. Don't know what

if anything can be done about it in EU or elsewhere.

Additionally....the potential banning of potent singles of the Chinese

Pharmacopoeia

(including bungarus, centipede, cicada, lumbricus, moschus, scorpio,

toad venom, etc) can be STOPPED and prohibitions such as ephedra CAN be

reversed.............but again the only way is for practitioners and suppliers

to

join together backing a solid intelligent strategy.

So far the suppliers and organizations have been spread thin all over the

playing board...... scrambling for crumbs..... using strategies which will and

have failed to stop what is coming.

There is a saying a good friend and fellow 'pro se litigant' says all of the

time and for those who are sensitive...please forgive the language.....'You

can only screw yourself in life.'

It appears that the CM/AP profession is doing a darn good job of it with or

without knowing it.

We have heard from certain people who thought they knew legally what they

were talking about discussing Civil Rights. After my post several weeks

ago......there has been no response. The point correctly posed and posted.....is

that

in the USA there is a HUGE difference between the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and

the Civil Rights Act of 1866.

In the end it is a SIMPLE choice which is up to the CM/AP community of

pracitioners and suppliers to DECIDE for themselves if this is a hopeless cause

and

settle for the crumbs or we are going to FIGHT the battle intelligently. For

if we are going to lose by battling....... we will lose no more than what we

seemingly are going to lose anyway.

Richard

In a message dated 1/8/2005 1:13:03 PM Eastern Standard Time,

writes:

Hi All, &

IMO, Todd is more or less correct in his assessment of the future of

herbal medicine, at least in the western world.

The FDA, EU and other western drug regulation authorities increasingly

insist on well documented evidence of safety, efficacy and quality

control for medicinal agents.

Legislation will allow, and practitioners' insurance companies cover, only

registered (authorised) drugs and medicinals. It will become more and

more difficult to source single ingredients that meet the approval of the

regulators. Many of the potent singles of the Chinese Pharmacopoeia

(including bungarus, centipede, cicada, lumbricus, moschus, scorpio,

toad venom, etc) will be banned in the West,

Western TCM herbalists will be left with a very depleted and sanitised

stock of authorised formulas or extracts. The " right " to construct

personalised formulas, or even to modify registered formulas by addition

or subtraction of single herbs probably will be banned soon.

This will cause traditional Chinese herbalism, as practised in the West,

to run aground in a stagnant backwater, from which there will be no

easy channel back to mainstream medicine.

In contrast, oriental herbalism is developing towards a biomedical

model, involving research to identify, isolate and synthesise the more

potent active ingredients from traditional herbs and formulas.

See for example the research at the Natural Products Research Institute

in Seoul, S. Korea: http://plaza.snu.ac.kr/~napri/eng/faculties.htm

Patents on specific molecules, or combinations of molecules (and their

sale and distribution via the pharmaceutical companies) are the likely

outcomes from this research. These new compounds will be used,

alone or with WM drugs, in biomedical models, using WM diagnostic

methods. TCM Dx, IMO, will decline.

We have often debated the need (or otherwise) for expert TCM Dx by

Pattern Differentiation etc. But we have little solid research to confirm

that TCM Dx is essential to effective therapy, be it by herbs or by

acupuncture.

These are sombre thoughts for 2005, but Todd's mails in recent weeks

have been pointing inexorably in this direction.

So, Quo Vadis CHA? What can we salvage, what SHOULD we salvage,

before the Titanic of TCM runs aground in the West?

Can we identify a few dozen essential TCM / herbal concepts that

should NOT be lost? Can we prove to skeptics, by well controlled

research data, that these concepts are valid? How do we popularise

them, and maybe even slip them into the thinking pattern of western

medicine?

Happy New Year to all.

Best regards,

Tel: (H): +353- or (M): +353-

WWW:

" Man who says it can't be done should not interrupt man doing it " -

Chinese Proverb

January 8, 2005

In all actuality, the future of Chinese herbalism has yet to be determined.

We may need to lobby to have a medical herbal category added to FDA for

properly trained practitioners or FDA to stop its campaign against

alternative supplements. The public needs to become more involved with

helping us with this endeavor we cannot do this without them. People have

and will continue to use plants for health as they are inexpensive and tend

to be effective with fewer side-effects. WM has for years used the plant

kingdom in order to get ideas for drugs. What is interesting is that now

they are trying to legislate these substances away from the public. What

about broccoli?

I went on your linked site and looked under the heading for natural products

and found that there is a rather large error in statement of fact. They are

presuming that ephedrine is only found in ephedra. If that is so, than why

the issue over ban xia and others? In the end, we will need to band

together as a group with a large public support. I think we can do it.

Education of our patients to this end is mandatory. Our associations need

to create a network with others who would work with us on this. Later

Mike W. Bowser, L Ac

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