AWSJ : SARS Brings New Respect To Chinese Herbal Medicine
Yap Yok Foo
9 May 2003
SARS Brings New Respect To Chinese Herbal Medicine
By TRISH SAYWELL and LARA WOZNIAK
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Could cow-urine extract mixed with bull-horn shavings, mint leaves and
melon peels help treat SARS?
Some in China's southern Guangdong province think so. Doctors at the
epicenter of the outbreak of the deadly disease known as severe acute
respiratory syndrome are reporting some success treating patients with
a combination of traditional Chinese herbal medicine and Western
drugs.
As conventional treatments prove elusive and health experts question
risky antiviral and steroid combinations being administered in places
like Hong Kong, traditional Chinese medicine is asserting itself in a
way it hasn't for years. Thus far, there is no clinical evidence that
cow urine extract, pounded almonds or ginger do any good against
stubborn viruses like the one that causes SARS. But as far as anyone
can tell, such treatments don't hurt either. And there is anecdotal
evidence that they help alleviate some SARS symptoms.
"I do believe some formulas might work in terms of relieving the
symptoms and may even enhance the body's defense system," says Cheng
Yung-chi, a professor of pharmacology at Yale University School of
Medicine. "As far as their direct antiviral properties are concerned,
that is questionable. But as long as they are handled with care, they
should be tried."
That seems to be the reasoning of Hong Kong health officials. The
ordinarily conservative-minded medical community in the former British
colony agreed last week to allow hospitalized SARS patients access to
traditional Chinese remedies after conventional medication is
administered. Doctors say such medicines haven't been used in Hong
Kong hospitals since before World War II, when they were banned by the
occupying Japanese as unscientific.
Professor Gong Shusheng, a professor at the Beijing University of
Traditional Chinese Medicine, says traditional Chinese treatments in
Guangdong have been "pretty good" at reducing fevers, relieving
respiratory distress and reducing the side-effects of Western
medicines, such as hormone treatments.
While the ancient field of traditional Chinese medicine is filled with
anecdotal evidence that herbs can help relieve symptoms of influenza
and other diseases, very few traditional Chinese medicines have been
subjected to the kind of rigorous scientific study applied to Western
medicines. But that isn't stopping even those trained in Western
medicine from looking to herbs for answers. The Institute of Chinese
Medicine at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the School of
Chinese Medicine at the Hong Kong Baptist University have handed out
free herbal drinks to medical workers to stave off SARS infection.
One drink supplied to 3,800 health-care workers is based on two herbal
remedies popular for the past 1,000 years. The substance is a mixture
of two anti-influenza remedies blending, among other things, mulberry
leaves and chrysanthemum flowers. "We are using herbs to try curbing
the disease at an early stage and to support the body's defense," says
Leung Ping-chung, chairman of the Institute of Chinese Medicine.
Chinese healers look at SARS as a "hot" condition, brought on by the
wetness or humidity of spring. Thus, the types of herbal cocktails
administered to patients are cooling ones. In Guangdong, traditional
cocktails were effective in reducing fevers from 40 degrees Celsius to
normal within two days -- much faster than conventional Western drugs,
says Dr. Lin Lin, who also uses traditional Chinese medicine, in a
recent documentary on Chinese television. The Guangdong Provincial
Hospital for Traditional Chinese Medicine, where she is associate
director of respiratory diseases, has treated more than 100 SARS
patients.
Just how Chinese herbal medicine works isn't clear. There is no
standardization or regulation for the manufacture of traditional
Chinese remedies, and even within the same species of herb or plant,
there can be dramatic variations. Some herbs may be toxic and some
have been shown to interfere with the way conventional Western drugs
work.
But there are growing efforts to give scientific backbone to some of
the claims of traditional Chinese medicine. Yale's Dr. Cheng, for
instance, is testing a formula consisting of four herbs discovered
1,800 years ago that he believes may help to relieve the side effects
associated with chemotherapy drugs used to fight cancer. "If you think
there is some usefulness in medicine, then you try to figure it out,"
he says. "Don't be a rejectionist, which is very common in mainstream
medicine."
Still, traditional Chinese medicine has a long way to go before it
convinces the mainstream medical community that it works. Paul S.
Lietman, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of
Medicine in Baltimore, says that studies of the use of traditional
Chinese herbs to treat depression, memory loss and prostate cancer
haven't shown any of them to be of much value.
Indeed, even some of the Asians closest to SARS aren't convinced. In
Singapore -- a predominantly ethnic Chinese city-state -- the ministry
of health says it won't consider traditional Chinese medicine as a
complementary treatment for SARS.
But many Chinese are more apt to listen to their grandmothers than
they are to health officials or scientists in white coats.
Sammy Ho, managing director of Wing Tak Hall, a Hong Kong business
that sells over-the-counter Chinese medicine products, says sales of
products that are supposed to strengthen the immune system have
increased as much as 50%.
In Beijing, newspapers are publishing local herbal recommendations,
prompting even more business in herbal medicine shops. And a
Shanghai-based pharmaceutical-industry executive says prices of some
of the ingredients used in the Guangdong Provincial Hospital for
Traditional Chinese Medicine have shot up since the information was
first distributed among traditional Chinese medical hospitals. "Every
day [SARS] creates 10 millionaires," he says.
--Ben Dolven contributed to this article.
Write to Trish Saywell at trish....@wsj.com and Lara Wozniak at
lara.w...@wsj.com
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