Chinese Medicines
For centuries, Chinese doctors have prescribed herbal
mixes to be boiled at home to help cure or prevent
illnesses, a time-tested but time-consuming method.
But in modern China, herbal companies are striving
to reformulate traditional medicines to be more
convenient.
Brewing herbal cures takes time and smells terrible, said
Liu Fusheng, a surgeon trained in Western medicine who
also uses Chinese herbal remedies. "Kids won't touch it."
"Chinese medicine has been used for 2,000 years and has
great potential, especially when combined with Western
technology," said Liu, consultant to one company trying
to bridge the gap, Metabolife International Inc., the
San Diego, Calif.-based maker of a dietary supplement
for weight loss. The company has a venture in Beijing
to market Chinese herbal mixes for pain, cold symptoms
and stomach ailments in tablet form in the United
States and China.
"Our company sees Chinese traditional medicine as its
future," said Michael J. Ellis, the company's founder.
The Aodong Pharmaceutical Group Ltd., in northeastern
China's Jilin province, spends up to 10 percent of its
$70 million in annual sales revenues to find high-tech
ways to remake tonics into tablets, instant drinks,
injections and sprays, company director Li Xiulin was
quoted as saying in the Science and Technology Daily.
U.S. companies are searching China for more herbal products
to sell, he said. Pharmanex, for example, imported red
yeast powder from China and marketed it in the United
States as a cholesterol-cutting product, Cholestin. The
Food and Drug Administration banned imports of the powder
because it contained a compound identical to a synthetic
drug Mevacor, which is prescribed to lower cholesterol.
A U.S. federal judge in February ordered the FDA to lift
the ban, saying Cholestin was a dietary supplement,
not a drug.
Many Chinese put great faith in herbal medicine, and some
travel long distances to see well-known traditional doctors.
More than 500,000 traditional doctors in China serve more
than 200 million people each year. The doctors are trained
to select from among hundreds of herbs to treat allergies,
arthritis, kidney stones, cancer and many other health
problems.
Herbal or homeopathic remedies have caught on in the West
ever since the back-to-nature ethos of the 1960s. Millions
of Americans take dietary supplements, particularly herbal
ones, and the Food and Drug Administration leaves the market
alone, unless a supplement proves hazardous or is marketed
as a drug.
Some Chinese companies are scouring the West for new
natural health products as well. The Delisi Group,
famous for sausages in China, buys seals hunted in
Canada and produces a "Sea Dog Oil" capsule that it
advertises as being good for the kidneys, sexual
performance, the blood, skin and general fitness.
The enormous mix of medicines in China is regulated by
the State Drug Administration and the State Administration
of Traditional Chinese Medicine, but Chinese press reports
say problems abound. A nationwide inspection of medicine
quality at the end of 1998 found 13 percent of 387,000
batches of medicines inspected were substandard, the China
Daily reported last month.
In a three-month period last year, 191 pharmaceutical
manufacturers and traders were punished for making,
selling or advertising substandard or fake medicines,
the report said. Of these, 12 had their production
permits revoked.
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