Quote:
Originally Posted by underscore
For fuck sake. I assume we can expect some kind of bear virus in a few years time?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-a9429116.html
The bogus cures are even more confusing. If it doesn't work anyways why bother putting animal parts, let alone endangered ones, in it at all? Just make fancy looking sugar pills like normal con men. |
I don't know about how it relates to Coronavirus, but I actually did quite a bit of research on bear bile right before the breakout, coincidentally, for my wife who was in the hospital with liver problems. She had her gall bladder removed about 20 years ago, and this issue comes up on occasion.
As it turns out, bear gall contains bile salts that are useful in treating her exact symptoms. Of course we're not going to use TCM that tortures animals to get it.
Thankfully, a real medication was developed from it - Ursodiol or UDCA (recognize the latin for "bear" in there?). It is the exact same ingredient as bear bile salts, but in synthesized form.
The medicine cured her completely, it was super effective. It would also be good for anyone with liver problems due to alcohol or steroid abuse, by the way. Also available in another form with conjugated taurine added - TUDCA. This is not a pharmaceutical, you can buy it as a supplement, and is said to be even more absorbable.
Anyway, my main point is that there are definitely some TCM that are efficacious and call for more research and development. But there is often NO NEED to keep extracting it from animals when a synthetic form is just as good if not better. It just kills me that their government promotes that type of thing, in order to "gain face" right when this whole shit was caused by it in the first place.
And banning eating cats and dogs is just an image thing. Expect to see more bans looking like this in the future, as long as it doesn't affect TCM.