Herbal use in patients with steroid-sensitive co...

[Guest guest]

> The point of my discussion isn't that modern methods of analyzing

> herbal medicinals is wrong, but that the Chinese did a pretty good job

> over the millenia in determining efficacy and toxicity. Whatever

> methods can determine this outcome are fine with me.

>

 

The practitioners of antiquity were successful at determining toxicity risks

within short time frames, cinnabar excluded. However, they had no methods or

resources for determining long term toxicity risks. I took a group of students

to Taiwan in 1996 and the government had just completed construction on a

building that had a complete floor dedicated to each: 1) proper identification

of

plant species 2) research on medicinals that treat 'hot zone' diseases 3) the

point - long term toxicity issues.

 

We are in an era of scrutiny by the dominant paradigm according to

biostatistical models. Given our current circumstances and real risks within

this

culture, we cannot use the 'historical argument,' especially for the management

of

life-threatening illness. The place for historical uses and safety is within

the definition of pharmacopoeia in general.

 

Will

 

PS: Paraphrasing Professor Unschuld, statistics as the validating world view

may go the way that demonology did in the advent of the Han dynasty given

sufficient social and ideological changes in the culture.

 

 

William R. Morris, OMD

Secretary, AAOM

Academic Dean

Emperor's College of TOM

310-453-8383