Community Hospitals Across Beijing to Use TCM as a Preventive Treatment for Disease
While the argument over whether or not acupuncture is “pseudoscience” is far from over, community hospitals in Beijing will soon use traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) as a preventive treatment for disease in 2017, according to a February 6 article in Beijing News.
The Chinese Traditional Medicine Administration Bureau of Beijing picked the community hospitals in Dongcheng, Xicheng, Chaoyang, Haidian, Fengtai, Shijingshan, and Tongzhou, to practice TCM preventive treatment for diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, insomnia, and obesity. The report states that "this move could benefit over 100,000 patients."
Director of the Chinese Traditional Medicine Administration Bureau Tu Zhitao explained that the administration will send professional TCM doctors and consultants to those hospitals, using TCM medicine (pharmacotherapy) as well as traditional Chinese gymnastics, food therapy, and traditional Chinese psychological treatments.
In January, the China Development Research Institute and the China National Committee for the Wellbeing of Youths set out new plans to promote TCM among Chinese children, beginning in March. Basic knowledge of TCM will be included in physical health classes in all levels of the schooling system, starting in kindergarten and through to some universities nationwide in order to let “youths observe, be familiar with, practice, and enjoy TCM, but also for generations to lay the foundation for sustainable development of Chinese medicine," said Liu Jianxun, former vice president of Xiyuan Hospital, China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
Wang Jusheng, former president of Beijing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, also stated, "In a family, the youngest generation's understanding and application of traditional Chinese medicine has an impact on the family of three generations. Through these lively TCM activities will give students a simple understanding of TCM, and leave them with a deep impression of the practice, which will continue to influence the whole family."
READ: Furor in China After Wikipedia Calls Acupuncture "Pseudoscience"
Given that the jury is still out one whether TCM is actually an efficacious form of treatment, this new initiative may be contentious among some purveyors of medicine. Alas, the cynic inside of us can't help but feel like these children are being used to infiltrate their families to sing the good praise of an unfounded practice, a fact that becomes even scarier when it is young people themselves who may suffer after choosing alternative remedies to serious illnesses.
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