• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Traditional Chinese Medicine Vs. Animal Rights / Endangered Species

blessmycottonsocks

blessmycottonsocks

Antediluvian
Joined
Dec 22, 2014
Messages
9,405
Location
Wessex and Mercia
(Transplanted from discussion of COVID-19 outbreak news.)

James_H said:
Shenzhen bans eating cats, dogs, snakes, frogs, turtles
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/soc...hen-bans-eating-cats-and-dogs-part-moves-stop

Edit to Add Relevant Passage:
The new regulations still allow for the use of wild animals for scientific and medical purposes but stressed that management of such facilities will need to be strengthened.
Click to expand...
About bloody time. Bring in a ban on bullshit traditional Chinese "medicines" too and they just may be on their way to joining the civilised world.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
blessmycottonsocks said:
Bring in a ban on bullshit traditional Chinese "medicines" too and they just may be on their way to joining the civilised world.
Click to expand...
From what I see 99% of TCM is based around a planned diet*, herbal medicine and things like massage. While the use of endangered animal parts is sensational it's a very small part of Chinese medicine. TCM is also pretty much universally believed and a big part of many people's thinking and lifestyle in so good luck banning it. As for the second clause - Mainland China has a problematic government, as twentieth-century history attests. Other parts of the Sinosphere like Taiwan or Singapore are a darn sight more 'civilised' in many respects than many European countries. And people believe in TCM in those places.

*e.g. It's wintertime and my body type is (x) so I should avoid bitter melons but eat more mangoes. That kind of thing.
 
EnolaGaia said:
Who pissed in your Cheerios this morning? Enough with the over-generalized cross-cultural bashing ...
Click to expand...

OK. But why defend medieval quackery involving Pangolin scales, rhino horn, Tiger bones, ground up Seahorses, various animal penises and such like?

I won't apologise for feeling strongly about animal rights.
 
James_H said:
From what I see 99% of TCM is based around a planned diet*, herbal medicine and things like massage. While the use of endangered animal parts is sensational it's a very small part of Chinese medicine. TCM is also pretty much universally believed and a big part of many people's thinking and lifestyle in so good luck banning it. As for the second clause - Mainland China has a problematic government, as twentieth-century history attests. Other parts of the Sinosphere like Taiwan or Singapore are a darn sight more 'civilised' in many respects than many European countries. And people believe in TCM in those places.

*e.g. It's wintertime and my body type is (x) so I should avoid bitter melons but eat more mangoes. That kind of thing.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I have no problem with promoting traditional herbal remedies. It's the unfortunately high-profile use of animals, that should be banned.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
Agreed. I have no problem with promoting traditional herbal remedies. It's the unfortunately high-profile use of animals, that should be banned.
Click to expand...
In the case of most exotic or endangered animals it is banned, though sadly that doesn't stop the black market any more than the worldwide ban on heroin and cocaine stops people trading in those commodities. Hopefully it does at least curb it somewhat but I've seen tiger parts sold openly in China and Hong Kong is still apparently a hotbed for the illegal ivory trade (not medicine related, I think).
 
They need a brutal crackdown on the use of rhino horn, tiger parts, pangolin scales, bare gall bladders and all the other backwards, dark age 'recipes'. A few weeks back China promised it was doing this but that promise need to have teeth, big sharp teeth. I couldn't give a flying toss about 'culture' if it's driving animals to extinction.
 
[sarcasm] And the UK has managed so well in banning dog fighting, hare coursing and the hunting with dogs ban in general. [/sarcasm]

Physician? heal thyself.

Edit to add: you have no idea what actions people do or do not take about animal cruelty. Please remember that posting that you are strongly and nobly against it doesn't mean that other people are for it :rolleyes:
 
I do wonder in that new hospital they built in six days, wether they will be fighting Wuhan-virus with traditional therapies, or go for western medicine.
 
Xanatic* said:
I do wonder in that new hospital they built in six days, wether they will be fighting Wuhan-virus with traditional therapies, or go for western medicine.
Click to expand...
Western medicine. TCM is focused on prevention rather than cure and thus fills a separate niche – more like a healthy diet with added Arcane Lore than it is like 'medicine' as we conceptualise it. Western medicine and hospitals of course exist in China to the same degree of sophistication as they do in the west, and of course if you got pneumonia or fell off your motorbike you would go to a western-style hospital for treatment.

This wikipedia page has some information about hospitals in China. Government-run hospitals practice western medicine while private clinics are often TCM. Doctors train for five years and nurses for three, though unskilled nurses are often hired as support staff.

In terms of the current virus, as there isn't actually a cure at present, treatment is based on 'supportive care' and probably keeping everyone in a hospital has an element of quarantine to it.
 
James_H said:
Western medicine. TCM is focused on prevention rather than cure and thus fills a separate niche – more like a healthy diet with added Arcane Lore than it is like 'medicine' as we conceptualise it. Western medicine and hospitals of course exist in China to the same degree of sophistication as they do in the west, and of course if you got pneumonia or fell off your motorbike you would go to a western-style hospital for treatment.

This wikipedia page has some information about hospitals in China. Government-run hospitals practice western medicine while private clinics are often TCM. Doctors train for five years and nurses for three, though unskilled nurses are often hired as support staff.

In terms of the current virus, as there isn't actually a cure at present, treatment is based on 'supportive care' and probably keeping everyone in a hospital has an element of quarantine to it.
Click to expand...
I was wrong: most patients are being treated with a combination of Western and traditional medicine, with a claimed high success rate. As the anonymously quoted doctor in the article says 'those people would have recovered anyway'

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/soc...80-cent-patients-china-benefiting-traditional
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
That's encouraging to hear. Hopefully Chinese public opinion will start to turn against medicines derived from animal abuse.
Click to expand...
The Chinese public are many and various as can be expected with such a large population; for example whenever they have the dog best festival in Guangdong, some people turn up to eat dogs and some turn up to campaign against dog eating and buy up all the dogs and release them to good homes. Much like many in Spain are against bullfighting or many in the UK are against foxhunting. I don't know about mainland China but in Hong Kong I'm sure the majority frown upon products derived from animal abuse and especially on the exploitation of rare and exotic animals. When it comes to stuff like shark's fin soup and Tiger penis, though, the people who can afford to go there are the rich and as anywhere they're a law unto themselves.

Shark's fin is still widely available in Hong Kong but due to public pressure many airlines traveling to the territory refuse to carry it. Which means there is significant public revulsion at the practice https://www.hongkongfp.com/2018/05/...nes-shipment-hong-kong-despite-ban-activists/
 
China ban eating of all wild animals. Lets hope they enforce this and stick to it.

archaeology-world.com/ruins-of-a-3000-year-old-armenian-castle-found-in-lake-van-turkey/?fbclid=IwAR2_8vUlLx19LTROvzSLn4l-xtOub-STcyyDgTfdawY6c57UWNRwpZu99FQ
Originally posted link isn't related to stated topic. Here are some representative news links from the same timeframe addressing China's new ban on wildlife trade and consumption.

China has made eating wild animals illegal after the coronavirus outbreak. But ending the trade won't be easy
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/05/asia/china-coronavirus-wildlife-consumption-ban-intl-hnk/index.html

China's New Wildlife Trade Ban and Upcoming Law Amendment
https://www.nrdc.org/experts/ning-lisa-hua/chinas-new-wildlife-trade-ban-upcoming-law-amendment

China Wildlife Trade Ban Expands to Consumption of Wild Animals as Coronavirus Spreads
https://www.ecowatch.com/china-wildlife-trade-ban-2645320590.html
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I dont think this problem can really be tackled until the West gives up on ignorance and superstition.

Seeing as the Chinese take us barbarians so seriously these days.

(And what will they do when they have a deer population problem? End up like the Japanese?)
 
Yithian said:
This is either an extremely clever reference that has flown over my head or the wrong link.
Click to expand...
lordmongrove said:
Christ alone know how that link got there!
Click to expand...

Post edited to disable misleading link and provide others related to the originally intended theme.

NOTE: I notice lordmongrove has posted the originally intended link while I was doing this.
 
An endangered porpoise.

The vaquita marina is found only in Mexico. It is the most critically endangered sea mammal on the planet, its survival threatened by a deadly clash of interests between fishing and conservation. Scientists estimate there may be fewer than a dozen left in the wild.

Jacques Cousteau, the marine explorer, called the Sea of Cortéz, also known as the Gulf of California, "the world's aquarium". One of its treasures is a silvery-coloured porpoise with wide, panda eyes. But the vaquita's days may be numbered because of illegal fishing for another protected species: totoaba.

Totoaba, a fish that can grow as large as a vaquita, was a food source before it was placed on Mexico's endangered list.

"We used to catch it in the 60s and 70s," remembers Ramón Franco Díaz, president of a fishing federation in the coastal town of San Felipe, on the peninsula of Baja California. "Then the Chinese came with their suitcases full of dollars, and bought our consciences."

They arrived wanting the totoaba's swim bladder, an organ that helps the fish stay buoyant. In China it is highly prized for its perceived - though unproven - medicinal properties.

According to the Earth League International NGO, 10-year-old dried swim bladders can sell for $85,000 (£60,000) a kilo in China. The fishermen of San Felipe make only a tiny fraction but in a poor community, business has boomed for the "cocaine of the sea".

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-57070814
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top