Wikipedia, Skeptics, Science-based medicine, Bias, Chinese botanical medicine

Chinese Botanical Medicine: Wikipedia Claims It Is Fake, We Are Certain It Is Real.

Richard Gale and Gary Null

Progressive Radio Network

Modern conventional medicine has increasingly become a culture of scientific and

historical denialism. Although portending to be an objective discipline of consistent

progress, the medical establishment more often than not denies the insights,

discoveries, medical systems, and methodologies of the distant past and non-Western

cultures. Rather, Western medicine is racing more rapidly towards a retro-future with a

blind faith in the promises of new engineered, synthetic drugs. Sadly, this pursuit is

misconstrued as synonymous with important medical breakthroughs and the evolution

of scientific medicine in general. Yet as the statistics show, modern medicine is on a

collision course with itself. This is most evident in the increasing failures conventional

medicine faces in fighting life-threatening diseases and the annual increases in

iatrogenic injuries and deaths.

Upon graduation, every new physician repeats “I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I

am asked, nor will I advise such a plan.” The Oath composed by the wise Greek

medical sage, Hippocrates, goes on to say “I will use those dietary regimens which will

benefit my patients according to my greatest ability and judgement, and I will do no

harm or injustice to them.” Hippocrates was a naturalist. Unlike physicians today, he

was expert in the healing powers found in the natural world and was a keen observer

about the health benefits of different foods, plants and herbs. However, modern

allopathic doctors are not only largely ignorant about the natural world but also the

epigenetic, environmental and behavior causes of diseases and the means to prevent

them. They have also removed themselves from honoring the Hippocratic Oath.

How well has modern medicine lived up to its Oath? Adverse drug events (ADEs) are

rising. They have become a plague upon public health and our healthcare system. As of

2014, prescription drug injuries totaled 1.6 million events annually. Every day, over

4,000 Americans experience a serious drug reaction requiring hospitalization. And over

770,000 people have ADEs during hospital stays.¹ The most common ADEs are

hypertension, congestive heart failure, atrial fibrillation, volume depletion disorders, and

atherosclerotic heart disease.² According to the Centers for Disease Control, in 2016

there were 64,070 deaths directly associated with prescription overdoses; this is greater

than the number of American soldiers killed during the entire Vietnam War.³ For 2017,

the CDC reported over 42,000 deaths from prescription opioid drugs alone.⁴ Yet this

figure is probably much higher due to the CDC’s practice of reporting statistics very

conservatively and many cases not getting properly reported. So, when we consider that

there were over 860,000 physicians in the US practicing in 2016, potentially most

physicians in America have contributed to ADEs.

No legitimate and highly developed alternative or natural medical practice has such a

dismal track record of illness and death. Nevertheless, when a rare ADE, poisoning or

death occurs Skeptics in the radical fringe Science-Based Medicine (SBM) movement,

who rabidly oppose complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and Traditional

Chinese Medicine (TCM), are quick to report the incident as a national crisis and

condemn the use of traditional natural medicine altogether. Yet if we look at the

potential number of iatrogenic injuries and deaths over the last four decades since the

start of the pharmaceutical and biotechnology boom in the late 1980s, we are looking at

over 60 million ADE incidences caused by conventional Western medicine alone. This is

nothing to celebrate, and no concerted national effort within the medical establishment nor

among the followers of SBM is being made to challenge the dominant medical paradigm

responsible for this crisis.

According to the World Health Organization, 80% of the world’s population uses herbal

medicine. And this trend is increasing exponentially.⁵ Skeptics have few viable and

rational explanations to account for this trend. Since they regard traditional herbal

medical systems as quackery, everyone experiencing relief or having a successful

treatment from botanicals is simply having a placebo effect conversion experience.

Fortunately, in the US and other Western nations, the public is rapidly losing its trust and

satisfaction with conventional Western medical practice and is seeking safer

alternatives. With healthcare costs escalating annually and prescription ADE’s on the

increase as more and more drugs are fast-tracked through federal regulatory hurdles,

relying solely upon allopathic medicine is a dangerous bargain. Dr. Dominic Lu at the

University of Pennsylvania and president of the American Society for the Advancement

of Anesthesia and Sedation recommends that Chinese herbal and Western medicine

might complement each other if we make the effort to investigate their synergistic

therapeutic effects. Lu believes oriental concepts of human anatomy should be further

included in higher educational health science curriculums.⁶ In addition, we would also

note that with conventional medicine in a crisis people are accessing the numerous

resources on the internet to educate themselves about the medicinal properties of

plants, herbs, supplements, and foods as part of their personal therapeutic protocols.

Wikipedia has a noteworthy amount to say about traditional Chinese herbal medicine.

However, its major criticisms rely heavily upon five-plus-year-old reviews of the

peer-reviewed research. Some references, in fact, have nothing to do with Chinese

herbology. The majority of clinical research into Chinese botanicals and medical

preparations are only found in Chinese databases. Therefore, Western analytical

reviews, including the Cochrane reports, are extremely limited, inconclusive and biased.

Critics of TCM frequently criticize published Chinese research as “incomplete, some

containing errors or were misleading.”⁷ These are the same Skeptic criticisms

Wikipedia levels against traditional herbal medical systems in general. With over

181,000 peer-reviewed research papers and reviews listed in the National Institutes of

Health PubMed database referring to TCM, it is ridiculous and disingenuous to assume

Wikipedia’s editors have scoured this massive body of science to make any sound

judgement about TCM’s efficacy.

Under the heading “Chinese Herbology,” Wikipedia states,

A Nature editorial described TCM as ‘fraught with pseudoscience,’ and said that the most obvious reason why it has not delivered many cures is that the majority of its treatments have no logical mechanism of action… Research into the effectiveness of traditional Chinese herbal

therapy is of poor quality and often tainted by bias, with little or no rigorous evidence of

efficacy.⁸

Nature ’s editorial, which reflects the same ill-informed opinions frequent in

Skeptical criticisms about natural health, does not cite any research to support its

sweeping prejudiced opinion. The editorial is primarily a diatribe against the growing

popularity of traditional medicine in the Chinese domestic market, estimated by the

Boston Consulting Group to be worth $13 billion in 2006.⁹ In addition, as noted above,

Wikipedia’s sources include a review of herbal medicine published in the South African

Medical Journal that only looked at six African botanicals, none which are part of the

Chinese pharmacopoeia.¹⁰

We would be negligent to not state a serious concern that readers should be aware of

regarding Chinese medicinal herbs and preparations. This has been rightly noted by the

SBM writers and Wikipedia: that is the high levels of toxic contaminants, notably

arsenic, lead, and other toxic chemicals found in Chinese herbs and formulas being

exported. However, Wikipedia fails to note the real reasons for this warning. Rather it

frames caution as a means to discredit Chinese botanical medicine altogether. The

export of toxic herbs is largely due to the enormous and out-of-control environmental

problem including toxic atmospheric particulate matter from over-pollution, toxic

dumping and waste spills in water supplies and poor agricultural practices. However, in

some countries such as Japan and Taiwan, federal regulations for the import and export

of medical botanicals are stricter and clean, non-toxic botanical herbs and preparations

are readily available. There remain very reliable sources for getting high-quality-grown

Chinese herbs.

One of SBM’s leading spokespersons, David Gorski, would like us to believe that Mao

Tse-tung should be condemned for restoring traditional Chinese medicine in mainland

China.¹¹ But this is a blatant half-truth. In fact, Gorski and his colleagues have far

more in common with Chairman Mao based upon the historical facts. It was during

Mao’s reign that classical Chinese medicine took an enormous leap backwards. The

ancient system was originally banned during the Chinese Nationalist movement in the

early 20th century because its leaders believed the old ways were preventing the nation

from modernizing. Mao initially made a small effort to restore the practice when he

came to power. However, it was after the Communist Revolution when Mao turned

against traditional medicine. The Cultural Revolution again outlawed the practice.

Traditional doctors who retained the most extensive knowledge and wisdom about

classical Chinese anatomical theory and knowledge of medicinal herbs were

systematically gathered for Communist conversion programs, imprisoned and/or killed.

TCM nearly died out altogether from the mainland. Years later, when the Communists

attempted to resurrect the ancient medical wisdom, only a few hundred doctors could be

found throughout the country with sufficient knowledge to start TCM anew. Yet, Mao

remained ambiguous. He wrote, “Even though I believe we should promote Chinese

medicine… I personally do not believe in it. I don’t take Chinese medicine.”¹²

Unfortunately, what is commonly called Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) today is a

partial reconstruction of the original ancient system that had developed over thousands

of years. Much has been lost. The government’s effort failed. According to Dr. Brigetta

Shea, “once the government decided to reinstate some form of China’s traditional

medicine, they did it with an emphasis on combining it with Western medical theory.

This shifted even acupuncture theory, as Western anatomical teaching was adopted

and esoteric subtle anatomy was discarded.”¹³ The result has been that TCM today is

a mere shadow of what it was in the past and is little more than a watered-down system

contaminated with Western reductionist medical theories. Fortunately, growing interest

in TCM is inspiring young researchers and practitioners to travel to China, Taiwan,

Japan, and Korea to try to recover the more ancient classical medical teachings that

were not included in the standardized TCM curriculums.

SBM founder Stephen Novella remarks,

TCM is a pre-scientific superstitious view of biology and illness, similar to the humoral theory of Galen, or the notions of any pre-scientific culture. It is strange and unscientific to treat TCM as anything else. Any individual diagnostic or treatment method within TCM should be evaluated according to standard principles of science and science-based medicine, and not given special

treatment.¹⁴

The remainder of Novella’s argument is an example of taking TCM terms

literally and not penetrating their deeper functions to discover their correlations with

scientifically identified biomolecular substances and events. Novella also believes that

the Chinese medical theories of qi and the acupuncture meridians share the same

magical thinking as “ether, flogistum, Bigfoot, and unicorns.”¹⁴

The master physicians and pioneers of the advanced traditional medical systems of

Greece, India, China and Tibet, were very skilled and astute in identifying metabolic

disturbances in their patients. Although on the surface, the humors may appear to be

outdated or primitive mythological terms, a deep study of the traditional medical texts

reveals they have direct correspondences to biochemical and biological processes that

are well known in modern medicine. For example, according to the recent translators of

the enormous medical corpus composed by one of the world’s greatest medical doctors

Avicenna in the 11th century, who revived the medical theories of Galen at the height of

Islamic civilization’s golden age, Dr. Hakima Amri, professor of molecular biology at

Georgetown University and Dr. Mones Abu-Asab, a senior scientist and expert in

phylogenetic systematics at the National Institutes of Health, discovered the ancient

descriptions of the humors have a direct correlation to properties of fats, proteins and

organic acids — the cornerstones of metabolic changes.

Due to its linear and non-systematic way of analyzing health and disease, modern medicine focuses upon single metabolic pathways and fails to consider that these pathways work in concert and are co-dependent with others. For example, a patient with high LDL cholesterol will be prescribed a statin without fully understanding the biological imbalances that increased

LDL. But traditional herbal systems, including Chinese botanical medicine, provide more

parameters such as a tissue’s hydration and energy production in the case of abnormal

cholesterol levels. Western medicine does not take into account hydration and energy

production in making an accurate diagnostic assessment of the reasons for a patient’s

cholesterol imbalance. This is where the ancient theory of humors, or the fundamental

“fluids” in the body — traditionally defined as blood, phlegm and yellow and black bile —

provides clues.

Western medicine has no equivalent to what traditional systems refer to as

“dystemperament” in a biological system or organ. Dystemperament was understood

as an imbalance in a person’s unique personalized physical, genetic and psychological

disposition. Today the rapidly growing discipline of functional medicine finds agreement

with this principle for diagnosing and treating an illness. In fact, conventional medicine

still endeavors to define the causes of many diseases at a singular cellular or molecular

level. It also faces a serious predicament in being based upon a one-drug-one-target

paradigm in drug research and development. Traditional systems, including Chinese

herbology, being far more complete and efficient medical systems, don’t struggle with

this dilemma. For half a century we have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on

reductionist biomedical research to identify genes, proteins and metabolic biochemical

changes that contribute to disease. But despite the enormous body of knowledge and

data we have gathered from astronomic costly projects there have been few practical

and meaningful results to find safe and effective treatments outside of prescribing

potentially lethal drugs.

Most evidence-based medical reviews of research conducted on the efficacy of specific

Chinese herbs fail to take into account that Chinese herbology is a complete system. It

is unrealistic to research a single traditional Chinese herb and draw a definitive

conclusion. An herbal concoction can include up to 18 or more ingredients, and these

may be fermented or simmered for hours to produce pharma-therapeutic properties

useful for the treatment of disease. This was noted in a Cochrane review of Chinese

medical herbs for treating acute pancreatitis.⁸ It is estimated that there are over

13,000 different medicinal ingredients found in the annals of Chinese medical texts and

well over 100,000 unique decoctions and recipes. While the vast majority of substances

used in Chinese medicinal preparations are plant-based, parts of animals and specific

minerals may also be included.15,16

Regardless of the Skeptics’ and Wikipedia’s invective to diminish Chinese medicine’s

efficacy and successes, TCM is booming; and extraordinary research continues to pump

out positive discoveries. Even Bayer Pharmaceutical purchased the Chinese herbal

company Dihon Pharmaceutical Group in 2014 because of the huge potential for

discovering powerful phytochemicals to treat a wide variety of diseases. Helmut Kaiser

Consultancy in Germany predicts that annual revenues in Chinese botanicals will triple

by 2025 from 2015 revenues of $17 billion.¹⁷ A Morgan Stanley 2012 review found

that even among Chinese physicians trained in Western medical schools, TCM is being

used as the first line of defense against disease in 30% of medical cases.¹⁸

Curiously Skeptics and Wikipedia fail to acknowledge that the 2015 Nobel Prize in

Medicine was awarded to China’s scientist Tu You-you for her use of the Chinese

medical remedy artemisia to develop an anti-malarial drug.¹³ In 2015, researchers at

the Texas Biomedical Research Institute and the Center for Integrative Protein Science

in Munich published their findings in Science of an alkaloid in an ingredient of the

Chinese formula Han Fang Ji that protected human white blood cells from the Ebola

virus.¹⁹ And in 2006, the FDA gave its first drug approval to an ointment based upon

Chinese botanicals, including green tea leaves, for the treatment of genital warts

caused by human papillomavirus.²⁰ In a bioinformatics database analysis comparing

phytochemicals in Chinese plants with the modern Comprehensive Medical Chemistry

database of pharmaceutical drug ingredients, over 100 Chinese herbal phytochemicals

had direct correlates with ingredients used in approved pharmaceutical drugs on the

market.²¹

Taking one excellent example of the synergistic effects of herbal combinations in TCM

is the duo Rhizoma coptidis and Evodia rutaecarpa. In classical Chinese medical

practice, this formula has been given for centuries to treat gastric conditions including

rapid healing of ulcers. Modern research has shown that together these herbs inhibit the

bacterium Helicobacter pylori, which frequently accompanies ulcers. In the US

approximately 20% of people under 40 years and over 50% of those above 60 years are

estimated to have an H. pylori infection which can be responsible for gastritis, stomach

and duodenal ulcers, gastric lymphoma and stomach cancer. The herbs were also

found to contain limonene used in drugs as an antineoplastic molecule and gamolenic

acid used as an ingredient in pharmaceutical anti-tumor drugs.²¹

Finally, we might take a look at the 2017-2018 flu season. In fact, the influenza vaccine

for this past season was a dud and failed to protect most recipients from infection.

According to the CDC, the vaccine was 36% effective.²² Almost 100 pediatric flu

deaths were reported. However, later research at Rice University determined the

vaccine was at best only 20% efficacy.²³ With conventional medicine and our federal

health agencies failing to protect the public, tens of thousands of people experiencing

the onset of flu-like symptoms rushed to purchase the Chinese herbal cold formula Nin

Jiom Pei Pa Koa . The formula costs as little as $6 in New York City’s Chinatown. Pei

Pa Koa is one of the most popular cold, flu and cough remedies across East Asia and

Singapore. It was first formulated during the Qing dynasty in the 17th century. The

results are often immediate. When we desire relief from a health condition that is all that

matters.

Therefore, we have absolutely no need for Skeptics preaching from their bully pulpits.

There is no need to read the vitriol of Science-Based Medicine’s priesthood. And we

certainly have no need to refer to Wikipedia’s encyclopedia of biased misinformation

parroting Skepticism’s paranoia and deceptive efforts to censor natural health. We don’t

need any of them to tell us that the relief we experience after taking a medicinal herb or

natural formula is only a placebo effect or a figment of our imagination because the

scientific research doesn’t meet their standards. The fact of the matter is that the

science will never meet their standards because fundamentalists, either religious or

science-based, cannot be persuaded by factual evidence that conflicts with their ingrained psychological ideologies and fears. And this is the fundamental fallacy and

blatant hypocrisy that runs throughout SBM Skepticism and Wikipedia. It is not

“science-based” because it is impoverished of the necessary inquisitive

open-mindedness that defines those who are authentic scientists. SBM is faith-based,

and holds fealty with a grossly reductionist, petulant and brattish mentality incapable of

seeing the forest from the trees.

In his criticism of TCM, Novella brings the absurdity of

Skepticism to a climax: “I maintain that there are many good reasons to conclude that

any system [i.e. TCM] which derives from everyday experience is likely to be seriously

flawed and almost entirely cut off from reality.”¹⁴ However, for thousands of years

there have been countless people who experienced and claimed the benefits from

Chinese botanical medicine. We have no need for Skepticism’s scientific reductionist

validation to prove the reality of natural medicine.

References

1. Weiss AJ, et al. Adverse Drug Events in U.S. Hospitals, 2010 Versus 2014″ Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project. January 2018.

2. Bond CA, Raehl CL. Adverse drug reactions in United States hospitals. Pharmacotherapy 2006 May; 26(5): 601-8

3. Welsh A. Drug overdoses killed more Americans last year than the Vietnam War. CBS News. October 17, 2017.

4. CDC. Drug Overdose Death Data.

5. Ekor M. The growing use of herbal medicines: issues related to adverse reactions and challenges in monitoring safety.” Front Pharmacol . 2013; 4: 177.

6. Lu WI, Lu DP. Impact of Chinese herbal medicine on American society and health

care system. Evid-Based Complement Altern Med. 2014; Article ID 251891.

7. Wikipedia. Acupuncture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acupuncture

8. Wikipedia. Chinese Herbology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_herbology

9. No author listed. Hard to swallow. (letter) Nature. 12 July 2007; 448: 105-6.

10. Siegfried NL, Hughes G. Herbal medicine, randomised controlled trials

and global core competencies. South African Medical Journal. 2012;102 (12): 912–3.

11. Gorski D. In the tradition of Chairman Mao, traditional Chinese medicine gets a

new boost by the Chinese government. ScienceBasedMedicine. January 2, 2017.

12. Kuo L. Traditional Chinese medicine is a getting a voice at the World Health

Organization. Quartz March 13, 2015.

13. Shea B. Handbook of Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda. Celestial Arts Press:

Rochester VT, 2018.

14. Novella S. What is traditional Chinese medicine. ScienceBasedMedicine. July 25,

2012.

15. Chen K, Bei Yu. Certain progress of clinical research on Chinese integrative

medicine. Chinese Medical Journal. 1999;112 (10): 934.

16. Foster S, Yue C. Herbal emissaries: bringing Chinese herbs to the West. Healing

Arts Press; 1992.

17. Helmut Kaiser Consultancy. Traditional Chinese medicine: In China and worldwide

2015-2025 with History. Updated March 2017. http://www.hkc22.com/chinesemedicine.html

18. Bayer. Bayer completes acquisition of Dihon Pharmaceutical Group Co in China:

Transaction strengthens consumer care business and moves Bayer Healthcare to a

leading OTC position. November 3, 2014.

19. Tetrandrine: Compound from Japanese, Chinese herbs shows promise for blocking

Ebola virus. Science News. February 27, 2015.

20. Tung A. Chinese medicine increasingly recognized in US. China Daily. December

4, 2010.

21. Kong DX, et al. How Many Traditional Chinese Medicine Components Have Been Recognized by Modern Western Medicine? A Chemoinformatic Analysis and Implications for Finding Multicomponent Drugs. ChemMedChem 2008; 3: 233-236.

22. Ducharme J. CDC estimates this year’s flu vaccine is only 36 percent effective.

Time. February 15, 2018.

23. Bonomo ME, Deem MW. Predicting Influenza H3N2 Vaccine Efficacy from Evolution of the Dominant Epitope. Clinical Infectious Diseases. 2018.