HERBS

[Guest guest]

, " alonmarcus2003 "

<alonmarcus wrote:

>

> anyone has any comment on this email?

 

The herbs that you listed are herbs that are covered under CITIES,

which is basically the international law governing endangered flora and

fauna. These substances are cultivated products that are endangered in

the wild- international trade requires that these products be certified

as cultivated vs. wild-crafted. With the appropriate permits, legal

trade is freely permitted for the cultivated forms.

 

Eric

[Guest guest]

It's CITES,

 

Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and

Flora

http://www.cites.org/

 

Here is a list of Chinese herbs that are on the list:

 

Bai ji

 

Chen xiang

 

Chuan shan jia

 

Gan sui

 

Gou ji

 

Gui ban

 

Hai ma

 

Hu gu

 

Ling yang jiao

 

Lu hui

 

Rou cong rong

 

Shan ci gu

 

She xiang

 

Shi hu

 

Xi jiao

 

Xiong dan

K.

 

 

 

 

On Sat, Sep 6, 2008 at 3:19 PM, Eric Brand <smilinglotus wrote:

 

> --- In

<%40>,

> " alonmarcus2003 "

> <alonmarcus wrote:

> >

> > anyone has any comment on this email?

>

> The herbs that you listed are herbs that are covered under CITIES,

> which is basically the international law governing endangered flora and

> fauna. These substances are cultivated products that are endangered in

> the wild- international trade requires that these products be certified

> as cultivated vs. wild-crafted. With the appropriate permits, legal

> trade is freely permitted for the cultivated forms.

>

> Eric

>

>

[Guest guest]

For more info on endangered species in Chinese medicine, see " Mending

the Web of Life " by Elizabeth Call. It explains the endangered status

and makes suggestions on alternatives.

 

Bill Schoenbart

 

 

, " Eric Brand "

<smilinglotus wrote:

>

> , " alonmarcus2003 "

> <alonmarcus@> wrote:

> >

> > anyone has any comment on this email?

>

> The herbs that you listed are herbs that are covered under CITIES,

> which is basically the international law governing endangered flora and

> fauna. These substances are cultivated products that are endangered in

> the wild- international trade requires that these products be certified

> as cultivated vs. wild-crafted. With the appropriate permits, legal

> trade is freely permitted for the cultivated forms.

>

> Eric

>

[Guest guest]

Eric

So you do not see any lack of these herbs on the market?

 

 

400 29th St. Suite 419

Oakland Ca 94609

 

 

 

alonmarcus

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

, alon marcus

<alonmarcus wrote:

>

> Eric

> So you do not see any lack of these herbs on the market?

 

They are all readily available.

 

Eric

[Guest guest]

, " bill_schoenbart "

<plantmed2 wrote:

>

> For more info on endangered species in Chinese medicine, see " Mending

> the Web of Life " by Elizabeth Call. It explains the endangered status

> and makes suggestions on alternatives.

 

A good read, but that book is riddled with truly egregious errors. It

has so many issues with inaccuracy that it may actually hamper

conservation rather than promote it. To engage the Chinese industry

on these issues, the dialog needs to be well-informed. I'm all for

her efforts, but she needs to consult with people who understand the

herbs so that she doesn't lose her credibility with the reader.

 

Eric

[Guest guest]

<alonmarcus@> wrote:

> > Eric

> > So you do not see any lack of these herbs on the market?

>

> They are all readily available.

>

> Eric

 

In my experience, this depends on which market you use and how you

define " readily available. " I buy most of the herbs for a local

dispensary (we cannot legally call it a pharmacy in our state), and

over the past two years, I have seen a big change in the availability

of these herbs. Springwind (and, therefore, Golden Flower) does not

carry raw shi hu, but a " common substitute " instead. I have been

unable to get gou ji and rou cong rong for months at a time, but they

do eventually get some in. If you know someone who has other methods

of obtaining these herbs (ie, non-commercial), they may be more

readily available. The difficulty in getting these herbs has also

affected the patent market. For example, Mayway has removed shi hu

from formulas such as Ning Sou Wan and the rou cong rong from Bu Nao

Wan. They have also removed gou ji from Ge Jie Da Bu Wan. While

formerly wild-crafted herbs like mu xiang and tian ma are now

cultivated, gou ji has been resistant to cultivation. So, its

availability has been inconsistent and limited, at least in my experience.

 

Julie C. Espy, L.Ac.

[Guest guest]

Mayway has Gou ji whole herb in stock right now.

 

Shi hu and Rou cong rong are hard to come by.

Suo yang is a pretty good substitute for Rou cong rong.

 

K.

 

 

 

On Mon, Sep 8, 2008 at 1:43 PM, j_c_sp23 <jcespy23 wrote:

 

> <alonmarcus@> wrote:

> > > Eric

> > > So you do not see any lack of these herbs on the market?

> >

> > They are all readily available.

> >

> > Eric

>

[Guest guest]

Eric,

 

What errors are you referring to? The only drawback I am aware of is

that she only sent her survey to acupuncturists who passed the

national exam, skipping most of the California practitioners. That

limited the info on alternatives to the endangered species. The

information on the endangered species themselves was written by

conservationists with expertise on those species.

 

- Bill

 

 

, " Eric Brand "

<smilinglotus wrote:

>

> , " bill_schoenbart "

> <plantmed2@> wrote:

> >

> > For more info on endangered species in Chinese medicine, see " Mending

> > the Web of Life " by Elizabeth Call. It explains the endangered status

> > and makes suggestions on alternatives.

>

> A good read, but that book is riddled with truly egregious errors. It

> has so many issues with inaccuracy that it may actually hamper

> conservation rather than promote it. To engage the Chinese industry

> on these issues, the dialog needs to be well-informed. I'm all for

> her efforts, but she needs to consult with people who understand the

> herbs so that she doesn't lose her credibility with the reader.

>

> Eric

>

[Guest guest]

Eric,

 

I haven't read the book, but could you elaborate on what the " egregious errors "

are in the book, Mending the Web of Life. I couldn't find a review that said

anything but positive things about the book, so I am quite interested to hear

what you have to say, since I think this is an extremely important topic. AND,

as I think you know from living here in China, just because a product is not

supposed to be sold without the permits, etc doesn't mean that it isn't, in fact

I would venture to guess that often these products sold as cultivated are often

from wild sources....but that is just a guess.

 

In Good Health,

Thomas

 

 

Beijing, China

Author of Western Herbs According to Traditional : A

Practitioners Guide

 

www.sourcepointherbs.org

Sorry this site is in desperate need of remodeling, but I can not view it from

here, so I have not been able to up-date it.

 

 

[Guest guest]

, " bill_schoenbart "

<plantmed2 wrote:

>

> Eric,

>

> What errors are you referring to?

 

I don't have the book in front of me, but there were many problems.

Nearly every monograph had major errors, and there were key omissions

as well. For example of a big error, there was a whole chapter on e

jiao, with the authors basically saying that the e jiao market was

supplied by a rare endangered wild horse from Central Asia. Any basic

herb textbook or the Chinese Pharmacopoeia clearly states that the

animal used is a common donkey, and the major production region is

Shandong, not the Central Asian steppes. Obviously, the wild horse is

also endangered on its own right, but it really a blatant error to

suggest that the common, cheap substance that is used clinically as e

jiao is the major cause of this animal's demise.

 

I strongly support ecology and animal welfare, and in the past I have

helped participate in international efforts to improve issues like

bear bile farming. But the book in question suffers from really basic

issues of fact-checking, and books like this really demonize Chinese

medicine when the content is not balanced and informed. It is like

trying to sway medical opinion with a vegan rant from someone with no

training in nutrition. Use of animal products is bad, Chinese

medicine is mindlessly destroying the planet, etc. These poorly

researched one-sided arguments fail to solve the ecology problem

because it is just perceived as anti-Chinese sensationalism with no

grounding in reality and education- that is not the way to change the

problems in China, and changing the situation in China is what is

needed to improve the TCM ecology.

 

Eric Brand

[Guest guest]

, " j_c_sp23 " <jcespy23

wrote:

 

> In my experience, this depends on which market you use and how you

> define " readily available. "

 

Good point, it depends on the market. The availability of many of

these products depends on the form that you use them in, and the place

that you purchase it.

 

For raw herbs, areas with large Chinatowns typically do not experience

shortages of rou cong rong, gou ji, shi hu, etc. Most likely, this is

because the big Chinatown importers deal in a large volume and have

the documentation, or perhaps they simply have a way of getting it

through. If one's entire raw herb market access depends on only two

big sources like Spring Wind or Mayway, there will naturally be more

challenges with inventory than if one is buying in a market with many

sources, such as Chinatown or China itself.

 

Basically the herbs that we are talking about are herbs that are

legally and ethically usable, as long as there is documentation that

verifies their source and ensures that their harvest complies with the

law (most of the herbs in this discussion are in CITES Appendix II).

For a small company or for any given importer at any given time, the

relatively low profit margin on something like rou cong rong relative

to the costs of acquiring the proper permits, time delays, etc

probably causes many to choose not to bother with these substances.

It is simply easier to avoid the issue altogether by not carrying that

particular substance. Even many large companies would probably choose

to just focus on the rest of the herbs rather than get bogged down by

the regulatory procedures; after all, these five or so herbs are a lot

of regulatory headache for something that constitutes only a tiny

portion of their total sales. I think this is the cause of the lack of

availability, as far as raw herbs go.

 

The issues vary from plant to plant. For example, the issue with mu

xiang has been largely resolved by granule companies and other large

producers by using the substance chuan mu xiang/ vladimiria instead of

aucklandia; this is considered to be an acceptable substitute, and it

saves the trouble of acquiring the trade permit for aucklandia.

 

The issue with shi hu and Spring Wind is probably related to price.

Spring Wind generally carries authentic and high-quality herbs, and I

believe that their herbal sources have the same common source as KPC.

However, while there is plenty of Shi Hu on the Taiwan market, shi hu

in Taiwan is generally quite expensive so it is impractical to form

into a concentrated extract. If KPC used the expensive product then

the granules would be too expensive, one batch would cost an

incredible amount to produce. Instead, their granule Shi Hu is quite

affordable, so the substitution is probably related to the

practicality of producing a granule that is usable by the market. It

is also possible that Shi Hu is difficult to import from China into

Taiwan, for reasons of CITES. It may be that much of the product on

the market in Taiwan is not traceable, which would be necessary for a

granule company to prove cultivation.

 

As an interesting aside, many substances that are expensive are not

made into concentrated extracts. For example, most granule companies

sell ground crude xi yang shen instead of a concentrated extract. And

despite the availability of ge jie on the US market from granule

companies, the mother companies in Taiwan produce no ge jie

concentrated extracts. The US distributors simply grind ge jie and

sell it as a powder, there are no real concentrated extracts of it

available. Yet another reason that people should want to know the

concentrations of the products in those bottles.

 

Some of the CITES issues are more easily resolved by large companies.

For example, my granule supplier has no problems getting certified

rou cong rong, shi hu, mu xiang, etc. However, the company that

produces the granules is China's largest concentrated extract factory,

and they work with the farms directly. For the companies that produce

on a vast scale, acquiring the necessary certification and permits is

just a basic necessity for their business, and generally they are

contracting directly with the growers so they can easily trace their

sources to begin with. I know that many Taiwanese producers such as

KP also work directly with growers in China as well, and many of the

regulatory problems that affect small businesses can be handled by the

big companies because the expense of the proper permits is not

prohibitive at a large manufacturing scale.

 

In addition to the CITES issues, certain herbs have also experienced

periodic shortages for a variety of reasons. For example, tu si zi

became unavailable to many in California recently because it was

classified as a noxious weed, an invasive weed that could damage the

local ecosystem. Tu si zi remained available in granule form because

the main issue was germination potential, and the granules are

obviously fine from that perspective. After a little while, the

Chinatown suppliers got in a bunch of stock of the stir-fried form (it

doesn't germinate so no legal problems), and ever since tu si zi has

been easy to buy again. Similar shortages have occurred from

" agricultural pest " problems, such as chen pi and hua jiao in

California. These problems come and go, and so far the herbs seem to

remain generally available.

 

And yes, I know about the typo on CITES, saw it the second I sent the

email. Always good to know that the spelling police remain vigilant.

 

Eric Brand

[Guest guest]

Eric,

 

The book was written and edited by acupuncturists, so it is certainly

not an example of " anti-Chinese sensationalism " . You have disparaged a

very important book without being specific in your criticisms, other

than your one example. If you could be more specific and give a few

examples of " major errors in nearly every monograph " , I would be glad

to forward them to the author for her comments.

 

- Bill Schoenbart

 

 

, " Eric Brand "

<smilinglotus wrote:

>

> , " bill_schoenbart "

> <plantmed2@> wrote:

> >

> > Eric,

> >

> > What errors are you referring to?

>

> I don't have the book in front of me, but there were many problems.

> Nearly every monograph had major errors, and there were key omissions

> as well. For example of a big error, there was a whole chapter on e

> jiao, with the authors basically saying that the e jiao market was

> supplied by a rare endangered wild horse from Central Asia. Any basic

> herb textbook or the Chinese Pharmacopoeia clearly states that the

> animal used is a common donkey, and the major production region is

> Shandong, not the Central Asian steppes. Obviously, the wild horse is

> also endangered on its own right, but it really a blatant error to

> suggest that the common, cheap substance that is used clinically as e

> jiao is the major cause of this animal's demise.

>

> I strongly support ecology and animal welfare, and in the past I have

> helped participate in international efforts to improve issues like

> bear bile farming. But the book in question suffers from really basic

> issues of fact-checking, and books like this really demonize Chinese

> medicine when the content is not balanced and informed. It is like

> trying to sway medical opinion with a vegan rant from someone with no

> training in nutrition. Use of animal products is bad, Chinese

> medicine is mindlessly destroying the planet, etc. These poorly

> researched one-sided arguments fail to solve the ecology problem

> because it is just perceived as anti-Chinese sensationalism with no

> grounding in reality and education- that is not the way to change the

> problems in China, and changing the situation in China is what is

> needed to improve the TCM ecology.

>

> Eric Brand

>

[Guest guest]

, " bill_schoenbart "

<plantmed2 wrote:

>

> Eric,

>

> The book was written and edited by acupuncturists, so it is certainly

> not an example of " anti-Chinese sensationalism " . You have disparaged a

> very important book without being specific in your criticisms, other

> than your one example. If you could be more specific and give a few

> examples of " major errors in nearly every monograph " , I would be glad

> to forward them to the author for her comments.

 

Sorry, certainly I don't mean to come off as overly disparaging her

book, perhaps my criticism was too strong. I support her efforts to

improve the TCM ecology and I'm happy to see such books being written,

I commend her for creating more dialog on the issue.

 

I'd love to go into more examples and specifics, but unfortunately I

am overseas right now and don't have access to my copy of the book.

I did a review of the book and I loved the topic but I couldn't

honestly recommend it to students, it had too much misinformation. I

don't mean to be too critical, I respect the book and its mission but

honestly the fact-checking was way below the level that it should be

at to convey the message effectively. At one time I went through and

found lots of examples, I wish I had the book handy so that I could be

more specific. It is not my intention to criticize without citing

specific examples, but they are definitely there and I can elaborate

in a couple months when I am back in the US and have access to the book.

 

I think that the TCM ecology issue is extremely important, but it is a

touchy subject that really requires an informed and balanced opinion

to have a real impact. Having acupuncturists on board to write and

edit the book is of course useful, but she needs experts in herbal

pharmacy, not just normal acupuncturists. The average acupuncturist

just doesn't have enough training in herbal pharmacy to know all of

the issues involved with the TCM supply chain- most of us learn

clinical medicine, not pharmacy. Pharmacy is a complex subject that

takes special training, the average L.Ac. isn't qualified to answer

the questions posed by that book. And sometimes having misinformation

that is written by acupuncturists is even more damaging than

misinformation that is written by laypeople.

 

Again, my apologies, I don't mean to come off overly critical towards

a work that is ultimately intended to make a truly positive impact on

the profession and the planet.

 

Eric

[Guest guest]

Eric,

 

I think you may have misunderstood the purpose of the book. The main

purpose was to point out which species of plants and animals that are

used in TCM are endangered. In many cases, TCM was not listed as a

major contributor to the decline of the species. Conservation experts

in each area wrote the monographs on the species for each chapter. I

looked into your one example of what you consider to be an error, the

Asiatic Wild Ass. There was no mention that TCM usage was causing the

endangered status. In fact, it stated that it was unknown if Chinese

medicine had any effect on the species. They simply atated that

Asiatic Wild Ass was listed on the ingredient label of some prepared

medicines. The idea in this case is to avoid such products.

 

In some cases, Chinese medicine was listed as a major contributor to a

species' decline. In other cases, TCM was listed as a minor user of

the species. The idea was not to place blame, but to make Chinese

herbalists aware of which species are endangered and to seek

alternatives when possible.

 

The book was not intended to be a pharmacy text, although experts in

pharmacy did contribute to it. I agree that there could have been much

more detail given when alternatives to endangered species were

suggested in the text.

 

When you return to your office, feel free to sendme a list of the

errors you believe are there. I will forward them to the author. In

the meantime, it would be best to avoid claiming the book is full of

errors if you can't produce them.

 

- Bill Schoenbart

 

 

 

 

>

> Sorry, certainly I don't mean to come off as overly disparaging her

> book, perhaps my criticism was too strong. I support her efforts to

> improve the TCM ecology and I'm happy to see such books being written,

> I commend her for creating more dialog on the issue.

>

> I'd love to go into more examples and specifics, but unfortunately I

> am overseas right now and don't have access to my copy of the book.

> I did a review of the book and I loved the topic but I couldn't

> honestly recommend it to students, it had too much misinformation. I

> don't mean to be too critical, I respect the book and its mission but

> honestly the fact-checking was way below the level that it should be

> at to convey the message effectively. At one time I went through and

> found lots of examples, I wish I had the book handy so that I could be

> more specific. It is not my intention to criticize without citing

> specific examples, but they are definitely there and I can elaborate

> in a couple months when I am back in the US and have access to the

book.

>

> I think that the TCM ecology issue is extremely important, but it is a

> touchy subject that really requires an informed and balanced opinion

> to have a real impact. Having acupuncturists on board to write and

> edit the book is of course useful, but she needs experts in herbal

> pharmacy, not just normal acupuncturists. The average acupuncturist

> just doesn't have enough training in herbal pharmacy to know all of

> the issues involved with the TCM supply chain- most of us learn

> clinical medicine, not pharmacy. Pharmacy is a complex subject that

> takes special training, the average L.Ac. isn't qualified to answer

> the questions posed by that book. And sometimes having misinformation

> that is written by acupuncturists is even more damaging than

> misinformation that is written by laypeople.

>

> Again, my apologies, I don't mean to come off overly critical towards

> a work that is ultimately intended to make a truly positive impact on

> the profession and the planet.

>

> Eric

>

[Guest guest]

, " bill_schoenbart "

<plantmed2 wrote:

> The book was not intended to be a pharmacy text, although experts in

> pharmacy did contribute to it. I agree that there could have been much

> more detail given when alternatives to endangered species were

> suggested in the text.

 

Dear Bill,

 

Again, I apologize that I do not have access to the book at this time

for more specific examples. I would like to follow up with the

author, in fact I thought about contacting her with my questions after

I first read the book to review it for the school. For now, I will bow

out of the discussion because I don't have access to specific

examples, and I don't want to criticize without providing more

concrete points.

 

The bigger issue to me is clear author bias on an issue that really

requires an objective look. I learned a lot from Elizabeth's book,

and I strongly support conservation issues. However, I think the book

suffers from a similar thing as the Paul Pitchford text Healing with

Whole Foods. To me, Paul is unable to hide his own personal

anti-animal bias, and it really detracts from the impact of his book.

Similarly, I think that Elizabeth conveys a clear bias against the

use of animal products, which makes the book feel slightly less

objective than it would ideally be.

 

Many Chinese medicine practitioners believe that animal products are

highly effective medicinal substances. In her interview with Blue

Poppy, Elizabeth Call says that she believes that animal products are

primarily nutritional substances instead of pharmaceutical substances.

She goes on to say that in the 300 people that she interviewed, only

one or two people said that TCM had even a single indispensable animal

product. I really don't think that this can be considered to be

representative of the larger worldview of Chinese medicine. Do less

than 1% of the people on this list believe that ALL of the animal

products used in TCM could be eliminated with no loss of clinical

efficacy?

 

To take just a few examples, gecko, lu rong, and gui ban are regarded

as some of the most important tonics in Chinese medicine. Lu rong and

its constituent pantocrine fill pubmed with pharmacology studies.

Traditional texts often mention the potency of products " of flesh and

blood " (xue rou zhi pin). Personally, I would rather see TCM ecology

promoted by encouraging ethical animal husbandry rather than

discouraging the use of animal products altogether.

 

Even the great success of turtle farming is diminished by the author's

view that the turtle farms are used for laundering wild turtles. Wild

products are sold separately to a high-end market that seeks them out,

they aren't mixed into the cheap commercial turtle shells. The lack

of positive perspectives on animal products makes the book feel biased

towards a vegetarian medicine, but the TCM worldview is extremely

omnivorous, everything has its own unique properties.

 

Ironically, there isn't even mention that China's most famous plant-

ginseng- is extremely rare in its wild habitat. Trade is still

permitted for reasons of economy, but the incredible cost of wild

ginseng shows how endangered it truly is.

 

Anyway, this response is longer than intended. Basically I would just

like to see equal advocacy and respect for plants and animals, and I

feel that the current dialog is too slanted towards the anti-animal

worldview, which is why I think that the book can have only limited

success in swaying Chinese opinion.

 

Eric

[Guest guest]

Hello Group,

 

Even though I have not seen the book discussed in this post, I feel

that this discussion is an important one because it touches the fact

that most of us " western " TCM Herbologists do not know much about the

circumstances (and the challenges) under which " our " medicines are

grown and refined untill they are the products we use in our clinics.

I think this is not only a lack of knowledge for ourselves and our

medicine, but also a problem when it comes to building common ethical

values about the quality of TCM medicinals with chinese farmers,

manufacturers, pharmacies. This issue is an increasingly important

one because of many reasons such as : growing concern about herb

quality, growing demand of tcm-herbs, decline of herbs possibly

gathered in the wild, growing pollution in a more industrialized

China and many more.

I dont know how it is in the US, in Europe we have established an

annual TCM-pharmacy meeting alongside the TCM-congress in Rothenburg,

it has been taking place since about 3 or 4 years. It is a place

where this type of issue is discussed in detail and where a lot of

knowledge is shared.

 

Nina Zhao-Seiler

Praxis für Traditionelle Chinesische Medizin

Wilfriedstrasse 8

CH-8032 Zürich

Tel: +41 44 251 1331

Fax: +41 43 243 6990

ninaseiler

www.tcmherbs.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Does anyone know of a good source to buy the herbs Nettles & Oatstraw

 

TIA

 

Lesley

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

How much are you needing? I have both of those herbs in stock. EZ

 

Ellen Zimmermann

Sharing the Wisdom of the Plants

www.ezherbs.net

512-301-5838

-

AlladinG

Monday, April 26, 2010 3:34 PM

HERBS

 

 

 

 

 

Does anyone know of a good source to buy the herbs Nettles & Oatstraw

 

TIA

 

Lesley