Traditional Chinese Medicine right or wrong?

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This is the standard line from the CAM community: Maybe it doesn't work, but since it doesn't "hurt you" it's still okay. Except that it costs money, and sometimes it costs a whole lot of money.

It's the same rationale used by generations of con men. All I did was take some of their money, nobody got hurt. And plus, it was their choice to give it to me, so I didn't really do anything wrong.

Physicians have ethics, or at least ought to. I would never recommend a treatment that doesn't work. If patients want to go waste their money on it, that's their business. But I would never support that foolishness by suggesting that it is "okay" for them to do. When they ask me what I think (and it happens at least once or twice a week), I tell them.

Who said you had to recommend or even support TCM/CAM? I said you can be sympathetic to their plight and less self-righteous when it comes to patients' opinions. Not sounding like an "arrogant westerner" with no respect for your patients' (possible) cultural background goes a long way towards getting some cooperation from those you treat.

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I actually read through this entire thread, and I was interested to see some of the misinformation and rhetoric being tossed around by the pro-CAM group in here. I really think that perrotfish got it right a while back when he said something along the lines of "First you prove it's safe, then you prove it works, and then you give it to people." I'm not against CAM treatments if they are effective, but where there is no evidence for their efficacy, there is no way that you can morally use that treatment. It doesn't matter if pharma won't do the research for it, and it doesn't matter if some of it works, and it doesn't matter if people have gotten better after using it. Without data the treatment should not be used, nor should it even be offered. I wish it were the case that every patient was well informed about the likelihood of a treatment working, but they just aren't. If a doctor tells a person that medicine can't do anything for them, and a CAM practitioner tells them they can, many people are going to listen to the CAM practitioner. Part of being a healthcare provider is the responsibility to inform your patients of what you can do for them, and I'm sorry, but, "This might work," is not good enough.

What it boils down to is this: treatments that work can be proven to work in randomized, blinded trials. You don't need to know why or how it works, because the statistics take all of that out of the equation-either it works or it doesn't. If CAM practitioners have not done the research to prove efficacy of their treatments, THAT IS THEIR FAULT! You couldn't possibly get by starting a new treatment these days without studying it first (and all areas of medicine do this, not just pharma) so there's no reason CAM should get a free pass.
 
I am too lazy to dig up history but you know that there have been people using western medicine inappropriately before. I don't think that is theoretical at all. I only used that argument to say that it is unfair to disregard TCM as a whole based on a few quacks who use TCM as a cover.

The U.S. can ban TCM if it likes. I really don't care. TCM is mostly the last ditch efforts from patients to get better where western medicine tell them there is no chance. Is TCM valid? Not everything. Should we ban it? Not up for me to decide. What am I here for? ONLY to give a different perspective on things.
Even if you were to find some article from the last decade which supported such events, you would still be using anecdotal outlier evidence to draw unrepresentative generalizations. Such a point is ridiculous. The same comparison cannot be made about alternative treatments or those that preach them, because that form of business is completely unregulated. There are no professional standards, which is why large variability and abuse runs rampant, which is not the case with US medicine.

Must be nice to live in such a monochromatic world. The fact of the matter is that what you say is never going to happen because patients have the right to make their own choices. You can alienate a patient by spouting all that self-righteous anti-TCM/CAM stuff, or you can at least be sympathetic so that you can steer your patient away from the truly harmful TCM/CAM stuff. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Well, patients have the right to make their own choices within the available options, the only constant of which is doing nothing. Patients do not have the right to take whatever medication they deem appropriate or undergo whatever procedure they desire. There is still regulation. Regardless, I agree with your last sentence given the current policies of alternative medicine. I think the conversation would be much different if the culture in this country banned unsupported and unregulated "therapies."
 
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I actually read through this entire thread, and I was interested to see some of the misinformation and rhetoric being tossed around by the pro-CAM group in here. I really think that perrotfish got it right a while back when he said something along the lines of "First you prove it's safe, then you prove it works, and then you give it to people." I'm not against CAM treatments if they are effective, but where there is no evidence for their efficacy, there is no way that you can morally use that treatment. It doesn't matter if pharma won't do the research for it, and it doesn't matter if some of it works, and it doesn't matter if people have gotten better after using it. Without data the treatment should not be used, nor should it even be offered. I wish it were the case that every patient was well informed about the likelihood of a treatment working, but they just aren't. If a doctor tells a person that medicine can't do anything for them, and a CAM practitioner tells them they can, many people are going to listen to the CAM practitioner. Part of being a healthcare provider is the responsibility to inform your patients of what you can do for them, and I'm sorry, but, "This might work," is not good enough.

What it boils down to is this: treatments that work can be proven to work in randomized, blinded trials. You don't need to know why or how it works, because the statistics take all of that out of the equation-either it works or it doesn't. If CAM practitioners have not done the research to prove efficacy of their treatments, THAT IS THEIR FAULT! You couldn't possibly get by starting a new treatment these days without studying it first (and all areas of medicine do this, not just pharma) so there's no reason CAM should get a free pass.

I think the point is that no one is saying you personally have to go out and advocate for or offer TCM/CAM to your patients. It's not an ethical question of "can I recommend this." It's a question of what do I say to a patient who is convinced it works or wants to try it. Or maybe it's a question of how do I get my patient to cooperate if it conflicts with my treatment plan for him/her. TCM/CAM is already out there and frequently way more accessible than western medicine, even in the US if you are an immigrant. It doesn't need you to be its banner child. So by taking a hardline stance, you may be doing more harm than good in the long term.
 
Patients do not have the right to take whatever medication they deem appropriate or undergo whatever procedure they desire. There is still regulation. Regardless, I agree with your last sentence given the current policies of alternative medicine. I think the conversation would be much different if the culture in this country banned unsupported and unregulated "therapies."

For TCM/CAM, unfortunately patients can take whatever they get their hands on. That is one of the most dangerous consequences of unregulated TCM/CAM. As for banning TCM/CAM, it would be almost impossible precisely because it's not considered medicine and thus cannot be regulated as strictly without definitive evidence that a particular therapy is harmful. To make new legislation, I think, would be difficult as no politician would want to open that can of worms for fear of engender allegations of discrimination and cultural insensitivity.
 
I think the point is that no one is saying you personally have to go out and advocate for or offer TCM/CAM to your patients. It's not an ethical question of "can I recommend this." It's a question of what do I say to a patient who is convinced it works or wants to try it. Or maybe it's a question of how do I get my patient to cooperate if it conflicts with my treatment plan for him/her. TCM/CAM is already out there and frequently way more accessible than western medicine, even in the US if you are an immigrant. It doesn't need you to be its banner child. So by taking a hardline stance, you may be doing more harm than good in the long term.

Of course you bring up a very good point, which is that no matter what my beliefs on TCM are (on the practitioners or the practice as a whole), the people who I have to deal with are patients. Still, it doesn't release TCM from the burden of proof on its practices. Ideally, I would like to see the entire thing deconstructed and studied to see what works and what doesn't. It would be foolish to dismiss an entire bank of possible treatments just because of their origin, but I also think it would be foolish not to study them just because it is inconvenient or they have been around a long time.
 
Of course you bring up a very good point, which is that no matter what my beliefs on TCM are (on the practitioners or the practice as a whole), the people who I have to deal with are patients. Still, it doesn't release TCM from the burden of proof on its practices. Ideally, I would like to see the entire thing deconstructed and studied to see what works and what doesn't. It would be foolish to dismiss an entire bank of possible treatments just because of their origin, but I also think it would be foolish not to study them just because it is inconvenient or they have been around a long time.

Already in progress (albeit slowly) http://nccam.nih.gov/

Unfortunately these things don't just happen overnight.
 
That's just one extreme instance of TCM. Many TCM is more about using natural techniques (think: herbs, acupuncture) to heal. The Western or "modern" knowledge of the body is not the most extensive nor is it the only way of seeing our bodies. The Western media really enjoys showing the extremes and I think it can cause so much misperceptions of the East or any other cultures (but that's a whole another problem). In alot of the times, the TCM is the less invasive way to treat illnesses than Western medicine. How is these "harmful" practices using natural remedies that much worse than eating artificial hodgepodge of chemicals called "pills" that Western medicine use to treat pretty much everything?

Oh and to answer your question: TCM is right for some parts and wrong for other parts. It is not absolutely right or wrong and "modern" medicine is not always superior.

I find it hard to believe that many/most TCM practices heals patients.... It cannot be compared to western medicine for it lacks the hard foundation of science that backs western medicine. Would you argue the same for african shamanism and other primitive forms of healing?
 
Already in progress (albeit slowly) http://nccam.nih.gov/

Unfortunately these things don't just happen overnight.

See, I'm still not ok with that though. You shouldn't offer a medical service until you've proven its safety and efficacy. It also shouldn't be the case that this is happening right now-TCM/CAM have been around for thousands of years, and the appropriate time for this research to have been done would have been decades ago. Just because the professional group "Hasn't had time to do the research" doesn't mean those practices should be grandfathered in until they are proven ineffective.

It's good that they are doing the research now. It should have been done years ago.
 
See, I'm still not ok with that though. You shouldn't offer a medical service until you've proven its safety and efficacy. It also shouldn't be the case that this is happening right now-TCM/CAM have been around for thousands of years, and the appropriate time for this research to have been done would have been decades ago. Just because the professional group "Hasn't had time to do the research" doesn't mean those practices should be grandfathered in until they are proven ineffective.

It's good that they are doing the research now. It should have been done years ago.
:thumbup: agree completely.
 
I think the problem here is that there's no accountability. The research has been done before. When the research being done now doesn't come up with the desired answer, some excuse will be made and more research will be done and the cycle will repeat itself. There's no governing body that holds such groups to any accountability. There are neither deadlines nor expectations. What's needed is for someone to look at a given topic and say "enough already, you're done" or "this needs to be investigated further."
 
Agreed. But it also works for other people as well. How big is the sample size I would not know but that is my personal experience and not meant to use to validate TCM as a whole but only the portion that works for me and others that I have seen with my own eyes. I provided my exp because I saw a certain level of ignorance in this thread like OP claiming gua sha being painful and then "losing respect" for TCM practitioner. I guess this is why medical schools want a diverse student body.

If there is institution that formally trains TCM practitioner (don't know if there is any, haven't looked into it) and teaching weird/harmful practices then you can question TCM credibility but the sources I saw in this thread are more like quacks using TCM as a cover to make money and to use that to condemn TCM as a whole is not a thing anyone would do. Such unethical practices are pervasive because they target the poor and uneducated population. I grew up in a working class neighborhood in Vietnam right after the war so I know that western medicine was expensive at that time so people turned to TCM.

I am sure in some remote corners of the world there is a quack out there using western medicine as a cover too and nobody would use him to condemn western medicine.

Ok, so you've personally been treated with Gua Sha therapy, and I guess you're right, it doesn't hurt some people : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gua_Sha

Sorry, but I still stand by my opinion that TCM practitioners approach the provision of healthcare in a wildly irresponsible manner. And no, they don't deserve respect for providing untested, unregulated therapies as if their 1000 year long existence is some form of validation.
 
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See, I'm still not ok with that though. You shouldn't offer a medical service until you've proven its safety and efficacy. It also shouldn't be the case that this is happening right now-TCM/CAM have been around for thousands of years, and the appropriate time for this research to have been done would have been decades ago. Just because the professional group "Hasn't had time to do the research" doesn't mean those practices should be grandfathered in until they are proven ineffective.

It's good that they are doing the research now. It should have been done years ago.

The research has been ongoing... not at the NIH but certainly in Japan.

Recent symposium on natural medicine
http://www.inm.u-toyama.ac.jp/en/TM_sympo/img/09poster.pdf

Also, I'm pretty sure TCM drugs are not considered medicine in the United States. They're marketed as nutritional supplements and you're supposed to understand that they're not tested the way actual drugs are. And that is actually what I would tell a patient if I were a doctor and I was asked about this. Things like gua sha should be considered akin to massage therapies.

At the end of the day SBR is right in that it's wholly unrealistic to expect people in China and Chinese immigrants to suddenly stop using TCM altogether, so the only reasonable option is to encourage research to weed out the practices and drugs that do not work so that the field as a whole can be improved. As for Americans who fall for those hippie scams, I honestly think that if someone tries to replace medicine with nutritional supplements the ingredients of which they can't even read, they've got bigger problems. I can't really see government doing that much more than blatantly telling you that you shouldn't take it as medicine.
 
For TCM/CAM, unfortunately patients can take whatever they get their hands on. That is one of the most dangerous consequences of unregulated TCM/CAM. As for banning TCM/CAM, it would be almost impossible precisely because it's not considered medicine and thus cannot be regulated as strictly without definitive evidence that a particular therapy is harmful.
There's a simple solution, to have anything offered as having health benefits regulated by the FDA and/or treated as an over-the-counter item. The mechanisms are in place to do this now. This would standardize dosage, ingredient disclosure, wholesomeness, etc, and eliminate the dangers of unscrupulous and mom-and-pop providers.

To make new legislation, I think, would be difficult as no politician would want to open that can of worms for fear of engender allegations of discrimination and cultural insensitivity.
Don't be so sure. I think there'd be more opposition from the New Age thinkers than from ethic groups. The ethnic groups are mostly too small to be of concern - there's plenty of precedent (political, legal and otherwise) that shows that American cultural practices trump those of immigrants when there's a difference that makes the immigrants' practices contradictory or unacceptable to what's more prevalent here.

The list of cultural practices abroad that are unacceptable here is too long to list. Banning or regulating the sale and marketing of unsubstantiated and potentially harmful substances would attract little meaningful opposition.

The AMA's lobbyists haven't made this a prime issue because they've had bigger issues to deal with
 
There's a simple solution, to have anything offered as having health benefits regulated by the FDA and/or treated as an over-the-counter item. The mechanisms are in place to do this now. This would standardize dosage, ingredient disclosure, wholesomeness, etc, and eliminate the dangers of unscrupulous and mom-and-pop providers.

You may have entirely too much faith in the government.


Don't be so sure. I think there'd be more opposition from the New Age thinkers than from ethic groups. The ethnic groups are mostly too small to be of concern - there's plenty of precedent (political, legal and otherwise) that shows that American cultural practices trump those of immigrants when there's a difference that makes the immigrants' practices contradictory or unacceptable to what's more prevalent here.

The list of cultural practices abroad that are unacceptable here is too long to list. Banning or regulating the sale and marketing of unsubstantiated and potentially harmful substances would attract little meaningful opposition.

The AMA's lobbyists haven't made this a prime issue because they've had bigger issues to deal with

Ethnic groups too small? I hope you are joking...

Besides, the american political system is not about size but about concentration. Enough of an ethnic group in one area could turn any state into a swing state which can then decide an entire election...or have you forgotten about Florida in 2000?

As for banning or regulating this stuff, the prevailing trend in these days of pot legalization and decriminalization is to look the other way. Statutes and laws will only drive these activities underground, making them much more unsafe.
 
Much more unsafe? They are completely unregulated now. In what ways would they become less safe?
 
Much more unsafe? They are completely unregulated now. In what ways would they become less safe?

Because at least now it's out in the open. If it becomes illegal, who knows where the stuff will be coming from.
 
Setting aside the comedy of a premed telling everyone the best way to get "cooperation from those you treat"...

I have nothing more to say to you sir.
 
There's a simple solution, to have anything offered as having health benefits regulated by the FDA and/or treated as an over-the-counter item. The mechanisms are in place to do this now. This would standardize dosage, ingredient disclosure, wholesomeness, etc, and eliminate the dangers of unscrupulous and mom-and-pop providers.

So when the waitress at my local diner suggests that I should have the (unregulated, unapproved) chicken soup to help with my cold, the FDA swat teams are going to come crashing through the windows?
 
So when the waitress at my local diner suggests that I should have the (unregulated, unapproved) chicken soup to help with my cold, the FDA swat teams are going to come crashing through the windows?
I think an exemption for waitresses and chicken soup would receive broad support.
 
Because at least now it's out in the open. If it becomes illegal, who knows where the stuff will be coming from.
It's out in the open? Really now? Someone earlier in this thread said they were aware many herbal preparations are spiked with opioids to make people feel better. Can you tell me where a random herb packet originates from currently? Is there some US News and World Report ranking for CAM providers or methods? Can you tell me the standardizations for any given CAM treatment?

The answer to all of these questions is a resounding NO. Aside from some of these people being listed in the yellow pages, there is no part of this field that is "out in the open." If there were transparency or standards, we wouldn't be having this conversation.


So when the waitress at my local diner suggests that I should have the (unregulated, unapproved) chicken soup to help with my cold, the FDA swat teams are going to come crashing through the windows?
You make a good (although mildly dramatic) point in that we would need to find a way to draw the line. However it seems rather obvious to me that the line would be drawn for all pills that claim to have some physiologic effect on the body. That seems like an easy place to start. Besides, even the chicken soup recommended by the local waitress has more government regulation and oversight than some back alley "treatments" by the very nature of the restaurant needing to pass health inspection.
 
It's out in the open? Really now? Someone earlier in this thread said they were aware many herbal preparations are spiked with opioids to make people feel better. Can you tell me where a random herb packet originates from currently? Is there some US News and World Report ranking for CAM providers or methods? Can you tell me the standardizations for any given CAM treatment?

The answer to all of these questions is a resounding NO. Aside from some of these people being listed in the yellow pages, there is no part of this field that is "out in the open." If there were transparency or standards, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

You know I've never heard of "out in the open" being equated to "standardized" or "well regulated". Out in the open means exactly that, it's not hidden and it's readily accessible. Despite its unregulated nature, this means that such things are less susceptible to abuses such as if organized crime got involved which may happen if it's driven underground. Although abuses may still occur in the name of profits even now.
 
You know I've never heard of "out in the open" being equated to "standardized" or "well regulated". Out in the open means exactly that, it's not hidden and it's readily accessible. Despite its unregulated nature, this means that such things are less susceptible to abuses such as if organized crime got involved which may happen if it's driven underground. Although abuses may still occur in the name of profits even now.
By your definition of "out in the open," a large variety of street drugs are "out in the open" in many cities across this country. Once again you provide unsupported and vague assumptions. There is nothing stopping "organized crime" getting involved in these practices now. If such practices are indeed driven underground, what negative outcomes do you fear?
 
By your definition of "out in the open," a large variety of street drugs are "out in the open" in many cities across this country. Once again you provide unsupported and vague assumptions. There is nothing stopping "organized crime" getting involved in these practices now. If such practices are indeed driven underground, what negative outcomes do you fear?

Do these street drugs have organized store fronts with fixed business hours? Do they operate legally without harassment from law enforcement? Do they comply with local and federal laws and regulations? Can they be grown, manufactured, transported, imported, exported, consumed, sold freely and legally? Now you are just twisting my words to suit your fancy.

True there's nothing stopping organized crime from getting involved now, just like there's nothing stopping organized crime from getting involved in say, mining salt, or growing bananas, or making potato chips, are you saying that they are necessarily involved in such enterprises?

I fear negative outcomes such as criminalization of innocent people, rise in crime from criminal activity, needless harassment of businesses, the potential for racial profiling in enforcement, diversion of law enforcement resources from other objectives, etc. I'm no expert on this, but as an ordinary citizen, those would be my concerns.
 
You wanna tell me how it "gets rid of fever" or "cures cholera?"
The basis of the practice is apparently in the "releasing of channel blockages in different appendages." If you believe in that practice, you inherently have to believe in the existence of meridians and qi regulating. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Chinese_medicine

If that's the case, I don't know what to say to you.

A lot of things work if you believe in it, and you should respect others for doing something that's relatively harmless. I've had that done to me too--it's pretty uncomfortable, but there is some effectiveness after the treatment. Even when I don't want to believe it works, it has reduced some of my symptoms.

Get some cultural competency or tolerance that not everything in Western medicine (which is rooted in a science that constantly revises itself) is correct, and not everything in alternative medicine is false.
 
A lot of things work if you believe in it, and you should respect others for doing something that's relatively harmless. I've had that done to me too--it's pretty uncomfortable, but there is some effectiveness after the treatment. Even when I don't want to believe it works, it has reduced some of my symptoms.

Get some cultural competency or tolerance that not everything in Western medicine (which is rooted in a science that constantly revises itself) is correct, and not everything in alternative medicine is false.
Sorry, but in my world, medicine should be based on evidence. "Western medicine" (read; medicine that has been shown to have a greater-than-placebo efficacy) has issues based on the incomplete understanding of the human body, physiology, etc. "Traditional" or "Alternative" treatments depend on mysticism and I have no more respect for TCM than I do for faith healers, homeopaths or snake-oil salesmen. If an appeal to "cultural competency" is the best you can do to support a licensed doctor supporting someone wasting their money on something that is as effective as sugar water, and sometimes much more harmful, well I hope it makes you feel better about yourself, but it won't make your patients any healthier and WILL make them poorer.
 
Do these street drugs have organized store fronts with fixed business hours? Do they operate legally without harassment from law enforcement? Do they comply with local and federal laws and regulations? Can they be grown, manufactured, transported, imported, exported, consumed, sold freely and legally? Now you are just twisting my words to suit your fancy.

True there's nothing stopping organized crime from getting involved now, just like there's nothing stopping organized crime from getting involved in say, mining salt, or growing bananas, or making potato chips, are you saying that they are necessarily involved in such enterprises?

I fear negative outcomes such as criminalization of innocent people, rise in crime from criminal activity, needless harassment of businesses, the potential for racial profiling in enforcement, diversion of law enforcement resources from other objectives, etc. I'm no expert on this, but as an ordinary citizen, those would be my concerns.
So your biggest fear is that these treatment methods might not have fixed business hours? Then you brought up organized crime as your fear, and in the above post dismissed it.

Then in your last paragraph you get to other fears. Criminalization of "innocent" people, another vague reference to crime without substantiation, unsupported theories about racial profiling, and "etc."

The concern of evidence based practitioners is that unregulated quacks rip people off with unsupported treatments which harm people at worst, and produce a placebo effect at absolute best. Lying to people with unproven treatments to get their money is not what I would call an "innocent" person, as you say. Prescribing unregulated substances that, as others have pointed, are often times spiked with narcotics, is not innocent either.

Once again you provide hand waiving unsubstantiated vague references to crime, the mob, racial profiling, and "etc" that doesn't exist. I think my real concerns trump your made-up ones.
 
Must be nice to live in such a monochromatic world. The fact of the matter is that what you say is never going to happen because patients have the right to make their own choices. You can alienate a patient by spouting all that self-righteous anti-TCM/CAM stuff, or you can at least be sympathetic so that you can steer your patient away from the truly harmful TCM/CAM stuff. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Don't be so open minded that your brains fall out. He's 100% correct. Of course, you can be tactful with your patients, but he's not talking to his patients right now. He's talking to people who should know better, and if any of you believe this crap without supporting evidence, then you deserve what ever hurt feelings he causes.
 
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Don't be so open minded that your brains fall out. He's 100% correct. Of course, you can be tactful with your patients, but he's not talking to his patients right now. He's talking to people who should know better, and if any of you believe this crap without supporting evidence, then you deserve what ever hurt feelings he causes.

truth.
 
Don't be so open minded that your brains fall out. He's 100% correct. Of course, you can be tactful with your patients, but he's not talking to his patients right now. He's talking to people who should know better, and if any of you believe this crap without supporting evidence, then you deserve what ever hurt feelings he causes.

Who said anything about hurt feelings? My response above was because of the ad hominem attack. The old "he's a premed so he doesn't know ****" argument. How could anyone go about addressing that? So I declined to go down that route.

And for that matter who said anything about believing without evidence? But automatic rejection as many here seems to espouse is what I don't believe in. A healthy dose of skepticism? Yes. Flat-out close-minded rejection? No.
 
So your biggest fear is that these treatment methods might not have fixed business hours? Then you brought up organized crime as your fear, and in the above post dismissed it.

Then in your last paragraph you get to other fears. Criminalization of "innocent" people, another vague reference to crime without substantiation, unsupported theories about racial profiling, and "etc."

The concern of evidence based practitioners is that unregulated quacks rip people off with unsupported treatments which harm people at worst, and produce a placebo effect at absolute best. Lying to people with unproven treatments to get their money is not what I would call an "innocent" person, as you say. Prescribing unregulated substances that, as others have pointed, are often times spiked with narcotics, is not innocent either.

Once again you provide hand waiving unsubstantiated vague references to crime, the mob, racial profiling, and "etc" that doesn't exist. I think my real concerns trump your made-up ones.

Once again you go about twisting my words. Did I say fixed business hours was a concern? NO. I said it is one way in which I judge what "out in the open" means. And I did not dismiss organized crime as a concern in my post. I dismissed it as a concern if the status quo is maintained. It will be a concern if TCM is suddenly criminalized.

For clarification:

1) Criminalization of innocent people refers to those caught trying to take TCM/CAM supplements when they are made illegal not those caught spiking them or selling fraudulent wares.
2) Racial profiling is a reference to the fact that people of Asian descent or origin and their residential/business districts may be disproportionately targeted for surveillance and enforcement
3) My concerns that "do not exist" as you put it is perfectly logical because they are hypothetical consequences of criminalizing TCM/CAM. Of course they don't exist now, that's why I'm concern that they will appear.
 
Once again you go about twisting my words. Did I say fixed business hours was a concern? NO. I said it is one way in which I judge what "out in the open" means. And I did not dismiss organized crime as a concern in my post. I dismissed it as a concern if the status quo is maintained. It will be a concern if TCM is suddenly criminalized.
You made the distinction that things are safer that are "out in the open," (even though these "treatments" are back-alley deals that lack transparency) and you judged what "out in the open" meant by fixed business hours, among other things. It's no leap of logic to therefore assume that, by your reasoning, lack of "fixed business hours" and other things that prevent it from being "out in the open" would produce lower quality outcomes. Regardless of whether you follow your own logic or not, the fact still remains that making non-evidence-based treatments illegal in no way changes their regulation, "purity," or any other characteristic.

For clarification:

1) Criminalization of innocent people refers to those caught trying to take TCM/CAM supplements when they are made illegal not those caught spiking them or selling fraudulent wares.
2) Racial profiling is a reference to the fact that people of Asian descent or origin and their residential/business districts may be disproportionately targeted for surveillance and enforcement
3) My concerns that "do not exist" as you put it is perfectly logical because they are hypothetical consequences of criminalizing TCM/CAM. Of course they don't exist now, that's why I'm concern that they will appear.
For clarification:
1) Criminalizing the sale or promotion of unregulated untested products being sold under the guise of legitimate medical treatment in no way criminalizes the population for which you show concern. Similarly, no one goes to jail for bumming penicillin off their friend even if it wasn't prescribed. Selling it without a prescription is not allowed though.
2) Made up. Legitimate businesses that sell legitimate wares have no need to fear such an unsupported concern.
3) Your concerns are still out of the blue, without historic or circumstantial support. For example, your idea about the mob somehow swooping in and running all illegal herbal sales is unfounded.

What people are calling for is transparency, and honesty held to a regulated standard of evidence.
 
Some aspects of TCM work. Some don't.

Is there the funding to properly build guidelines and EBM for most of these practices? Nope.

Because herbs and ancient knowledge cannot be patented by pharmaceutical company=no interest in funding research which could prove it. The system is broken and built upon for-profit tendencies. :scared:

Leave it to other countries: Korea, Japan, China are starting to generate research for the sake of the pursuit of knowledge itself and finding things out about the mysteries of Asia's ancient medicines.

Is not the original point of DO, even chiropractic (which has spotty effectiveness compared to acupuncture), to manipulate the body to effect change? Who says inserting needles and applying heat can in no way effect changes? It has worked for me when western medicine failed me: for regulating my cycle and reducing anxiety. I have anxiety and PCOS which comes with a whole bunch of hormone problems and painful cysts and at a time mono virus and swelling in my lymph nodes that just wouldn't quit. I went to ENTs, MDs, DOs... nobody had anything to say... went to acupuncture and the swelling evaporated and cycle is regulated since.

Each medicine has its place. Western medicine is remarkable at intervening in emergencies and teaching us the why, and how of disease. Also, stellar and powerful diagnostic tools to pinpoint the etiology of disease. But eastern medicine excels at understanding the patient and helping them before hurting them. For example, why addict someone to painkillers when they could cheaply be treated (community acupuncture clinics cost only 15 dollars a treatment, the co-pay for some medicines) and are effective for many people. It's a shame that the effectiveness cannot be properly investigated because the government-industrial complex of pharmaceuticals is not financially vested in cures which show no promise of generating profits beyond the sale of filiform needles, which doesn't compare to the sales of chemical cocktails.

Also with you: don't dock it, new "functional medicine" which is finally looking into why western medicine fails so many patients (including myself, which is why I want to become a healer in the first place) and beginning to be more holistic: is looking into these ancient remedies and creating the neutraceutical movement. And the sad thing is really that for preventive medicine and common complaints, changes in diet and lifestyle may be crucial for people to stop the disease.

Layer this with the crappy agricultural subsidization structure which awards the most money to GMO Round-up saturated corn for the beef industry and ethanol production, most our food is now corn syrup which will send a steady flow of unfortunate victims of corn syrup poisoning: Type II diabetes to endocrinologists for years to come. And all the flame ******ants in our plastics giving our cats and ourselves hyper and hypothyrodism... the BPA in our baby bottles, plastics, cosmetics, and "personal care" products giving us reproductive cancers and hormonal imbalances... many people are sadly unaware of the state of society, industry, and government's intersection and how that comes into play making people sick. So many diseases are the product of this crappy environment.

Western medicine is now crisis management. So if a patient has the chance to add another toxin or side effect producing compound into their body: (outside of emergent situations, at which western medicine excels at treating), or a 15 dollar appointment at community acupuncture would ease their complain without taking the medication, or consultation with a nutritionist would help them better understand why their body is in disarray based on crappy foods and drinks they're consuming, I say give them the community acupuncture treatment and nutritional/lifestyle counseling after they have achieved a proper diagnostic work-up through western medicine. It's really amazing what can be found out with modern tests, but this elitist exclusion of common sense and centuries old remedies (why would they persist if they failed?) baffles me.

Perhaps you won't understand until you are sick one day and western medicine cannot answer your questions.

For minor complaints or consistent ones discounted by my physician, or for chronic disease where the problem is just managed with drugs which have hideous side effects, I'll definitely go to the acupuncturist first. If I get hit by a bus or have some ominous signs of a bad disease (which acupuncturists are trained to recognize, training is now becoming very expensive because they must also take classes covering western medical terminology and pathology) then I'll head to an MD.

Don't let arrogance that the modern way is the best way cheat your patients. Sure there are great breakthroughs happening, but there are also debacles where drugs have been improperly perscribed: thalidomide, vioxx, Z-packs now in question... the list goes on and on.
 
Traditional Chinese Medicine is powerful and has much many relationship with philosophy.In fact,nowadays there are less doctor can really understand TCM at all,in contrast,in ancient,doctors can do this.
It is true that many TCM points are wrong,but,we should give up it's wrong points and grasp it's right points.
 
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