Chinese Medicine

[digital goldfish]

Can't decide if this is good or bad!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1176808,00.html

 

[Suezoled]

Hider agrees that Chinese medicines cannot continue to be marketed as foodstuffs in Britain."They need to be properly controlled and administered through licensed pharmacies," he says. "To do that, there needs to be a lot of work on the quality control of the medicines and proper clinical trials - so it's not just hearsay, there's proven evidence that this particular extract does have a beneficial effect. One needs facts."

not bad. Proceed with caution is the bottom line.

 

[Rolfe]

I think the article is a bit uncritical. TCM isn't well controlled or well understood even in China. One interesting feature is that the practitioner is allowed to substitute a completely different plant or herb that merely looks similar to the one the recipe calls for. This is because a lot of the alleged properties are based on the gross appearance of the plants - a form of sympathetic magic.

There's no doubt these things can be very toxic. A TCM practitioner near here was prosecuted recently after a herb she prescribed sent the patient into complete kidney failure. The preparation had contained an ingredient that is specifically banned in Britain, but the practitioner was acquitted based on her plea that she had merely taken her supplier's word for what was in the preparation. No accountabillity, apparently. Meanwhile the patient is on dialysis.

There may well be useful therapeutic compounds in there, but figuring out what amid the jumble of superstition and anecdote will be a mammoth task.

Wasn't there a recent thread on a current consultation about licensing TCM and acupuncture? Anyone have the link? The consultation is open until June, I believe.

Rolfe.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Ta-da!

http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=36367

http://www.dh.gov.uk/Consultations/...nsArticle/fs/en?CONTENT_ID=4074815&chk=OINxve

Get those replies rolling in.

Seems like the woos are missing us at Hpathy

http://www.hpathy.com/forum/display...ID=8&TopicID=1076&PagePosition=1&ThreadPage=9

If anyone's interested in how they manage a debate without a little sceptical input, look at this illogical nonsense;

http://www.hpathy.com/forum/display_topic_threads.asp?ForumID=2&TopicID=1230&PagePosition=1

e.g. " I think I would agree with you on this one. I think that where there has been a pathological breakdown of tissue, not even homeopathy can reverse this and neither can the allopathic system of medicine either."

This posted by the eejit that claimed to have seen cases of end-stage chronic renal failure cured by magic water. Hmm...perhaps he doesn't have the word 'contradiction' in his dictionary.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Having now read the Guardian piece on TCM, it raises an interesting subject. Let's assume that, unlike homeopathy, there really is stuff in the medicine that can genunely affect the subject. It is an interesting possibility that the remedies only work well provided they are given as the mixed up mess of active ingredients that their biological raw materials provide and that adopting the Western analytical approach to extract the main ingredient could isolate a compound that is less efective without the other components and/or does not have its toxic effects mitigated by other components. On the other hand, if it is so dependent on a fine balance of ingredients like one of Professor Snape's potions then proper quality control could never be applied and, although some patients may genuinely benefit, others may be harmed or receive no useful effect.

I take it for granted that this is all wrapped up with a load of mystical nonsense and medicines that have no effect whatsoever, but at least it presents an interesting conundrum: worth applying some effort to the separation of wheat from chaff unlike homeopathy.

 

[Suezoled]

I've seen Guardian articles outright blaming vaccines for harm to their kids. They run quite a lot of things.

I found the article better than the usual pro-CAM. Not saying it's great, but it's better.

 

[Rolfe]

If anyone's interested in how they manage a debate without a little sceptical input, look at this illogical nonsense;

http://www.hpathy.com/forum/display_topic_threads.asp?ForumID=2&TopicID=1230&PagePosition=1

Dr. mas administered that remedy on a hepatitis patient and surprisingly, the ALT and SGOPT valued decreased considerably.

The what??? (Still, I find that plasma liver enzyme activities decrease in all hepatitis patients as they pass out of the initial acute phase, so I'm not sure why anyone should have been all that surprised.)

Dr. Rama Krishnann of India claims of having 80% curability rate in cancer and Dr. Peter Chap claims 80 to 90 % cure rate in AIDS. Both are homeopaths... Attainging 80% cureability rate is not khalagee ka ghar. It was achieved with efforts and by adopting good techniques of using homeopathic principles.

All together now.... PROVE IT. (And I don't mean, take the remedy yourself and see what happens, either! )

I think they need another troll attack, no? MD?

Now returning this thread to the original topic....

Rolfe.