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XIKOU,
China—The
fur is flying, not to mention the acupuncture needles,
the herbs and the $15,000-a-pound bull gallstones.
China’s
ancient healing arts, as integral to national identity
as the Great Wall or steamed dumplings, have become
embroiled in the country’s struggle to balance tradition
and modernity.
A
relatively obscure professor at a regional university
kicked off the controversy in October with an online
petition calling for traditional medicine to be stripped
from the Chinese Constitution. It has a protected status
here that, in theory, guarantees it equal footing with
its Western counterpart.
Zhang
Gongyao and fellow critics have blasted Chinese medicine
as an often ineffective, even dangerous derivative of
witchcraft that relies on untested concoctions and
obscure ingredients to trick patients, then employs a
host of excuses if the treatment doesn’t work.
For
adherents of the 3,000-year-old system, this borders on
heresy. The Health Ministry labeled Zhang’s ideas
“ignorant of history,” and traditionalists have called
the skeptics traitors bent on “murdering” Chinese
culture.
Ironically, the firestorm dovetails with a growing
embrace of Chinese medicine abroad as an antidote to the
perceived soulless, money-obsessed nature of Western
health care.
On a
trip to
China in mid-December, US Health and Human Services
Secretary Mike Leavitt said the two countries planned to
trade lessons on how to integrate Western and Chinese
medicine.
“It’s an
area of interest for China and the US,” he said.
Many
Australians, Europeans and Americans see the limitations
of advanced science, said Rey Tiquia, an expert in
Chinese traditional medicine based in Australia, even as
more Chinese begin to view their traditions as
old-fashioned.
“For
Chinese,” he said, “it’s still the lure of something new
and shiny, like riding a car rather than a bicycle.”
Since
1949, the number of traditional doctors trained in China
has fallen by nearly half to 270,000, while the number
of Western-trained doctors has jumped 20-fold to more
than 1.7 million.
Criticism that traditional medicine is not scientific
dates back centuries. But Zhang’s remedies—an end to
national insurance coverage for traditional medicine,
rigorous scientific standards and obligatory Western
training for traditional doctors—have hit a nerve at a
time when traditional Chinese medicine is increasingly
on the defensive.
At
Beijing’s prestigious Xiehe Hospital, cardiology,
gynecology, internal medicine and other Western
specialties are housed in a new six-story building
filled with shiny equipment, well-maintained halls and
renovated toilets.
The
traditional medicine department is relegated to eight
consulting rooms and a therapeutic facility in an outer
building with peeling green paint, water-stained walls
and a foul smell emanating from a dimly lighted toilet.
Some
blame skewed financial incentives and a government that
is forgetting its roots.
“The
Health Ministry is actually the Ministry of Western
Health,” said Lin Zhongpeng, a researcher with the
Beijing Tianren Yiyi Traditional Medicine Institute.
“It’s also shocking that doctors get 15 percent
kickbacks selling Western drugs.”
Traditional remedies tend to be less expensive than
Western ones. At Tongrentang traditional pharmacy and
clinic along Dashila alley in Beijing, a dozen people
waited for football-sized bags of herbs for a few
dollars each.
But
there are more expensive exceptions.
In glass
cases, beneath an ad touting an herbal tonic for avian
flu, shelves brimmed with dried snakes, sea horses,
ground-up pearls and deer horn powder, used for ailments
such as rheumatism, paralysis, asthma, epilepsy,
gastritis and acute infantile convulsions.
Nearby,
an ornate green box lined with red satin held a
shriveled deer penis and testicles ensemble for $63—
nature’s apparent answer to Viagra.
“That’s
to improve male function,” an employee explained.
Deer
privates at nearly a month’s average wage hardly top the
price list.
“The
most expensive would be bull gallstones,” a clerk said,
pointing at a yellowish shrink-wrapped object the size
of a nickel, used for fevers and inflammation.
In an
adjoining building, third-generation traditional doctor
Guan Qingwei examined several patients, prescribing
different herbal combinations for insomnia, high-blood
pressure and rashes.
Unlike
Western medicine, which focuses on the disease,
traditional medicine takes a holistic approach, he said.
Adherents of “ZangXiang,” one of the discipline’s
fundamental tenets, believe the body gives external
clues to the imbalance of internal organs, which can be
rectified with herbs and acupuncture.
Both
systems have their strengths, Guan said, but judging
traditional medicine according to Western scientific
theory and using “double-blind” tests on herbal remedies
is inappropriate.
“Not
only is it unfair, it’s laughable,” he said. “It’s like
judging hamburgers based on the taste of dumplings.”
Although
Chinese schools pump out thousands of traditional
medicine graduates each year, nearly half never
practice—they chose the specialty because other
departments were full.
A
Chinese government delegation on a recent visit to
California said the US could surpass China soon as the
best place to learn traditional medicine, said Lixin
Huang, president of the American College of Traditional
Chinese Medicine in San Francisco, the nation’s oldest
such graduate program.
A common
criticism of Chinese medicine involves its
often-unregulated ingredients.
“Many
herbal medicines considered innocuous are actually very
toxic,” said Fang Zhouzi, a biochemist, columnist and
founder of a Web site that targets academic fraud. “But
practitioners and proponents cover this up using various
excuses.”
The Food
and Drug Administration banned products marketed as
Chinese herbal medicine during the 1970s and ’80s after
they were implicated in several deaths. In 2004, the FDA
issued a ban on the herb ephedra after it was linked to
heart attacks and strokes.
Chinese
traditional experts blame misuse. They point to “guan mu
tong,” which has been used for centuries to treat
urinary tract infections. Problems surfaced only when
Westerners used it incorrectly as part of a weight-loss
therapy, they say.
Nor are
Western drugs free of powerful side effects, others
counter.
“Why
don’t people talk about Western medicines that cause
problems?” said Zheng Jinsheng, a professor at the
Academy
of Chinese Medical Sciences in Beijing, who thinks both
disciplines have their place. “Why is traditional
medicine always blamed?”
Chinese
medicine’s use of endangered animal and plant
ingredients also has been cause for concern. Officially,
China forbids trading in the items, but rising incomes
and old habits threaten species worldwide.
Western
medicine was introduced to China by missionaries in the
late 16th century, though it remained largely a
curiosity for centuries. In the early 19th century,
missionary hospitals became more widespread as European
nations elbowed for influence in a weakened
China.
“We must
never forget our roots,” said Li Jian, 46, a business
consultant, accompanying his father to a traditional
doctor for a liver ailment.
“Western
medicine always tries to judge traditional medicine from
its perspective. Maybe if
China
becomes very powerful one day, we’ll return the favor.”
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