20 19 On May 25th, Geneva, Switzerland, the World Health Assembly released the 1 1 version of the International Classification of Diseases. Among them, a special chapter was compiled in traditional medicine (ICD 1 1-25), and a disease and syndrome classification system based on traditional Chinese medicine and taking into account traditional Japanese and Korean medicine was established. For this matter, China has been working hard for 10 years, among which former WHO Director-General Margaret Chan "played an important role". Some media are excited to think that this indicates that Chinese medicine has been recognized by "international mainstream medicine". Traditional Chinese medicine will become the mainstream therapy in the world, not just as a supplementary alternative therapy besides standard therapies such as surgery and radiotherapy. Some Chinese medicine experts also believe that this is a "milestone" for Chinese medicine to go global. Chinese medicine enthusiasts and Chinese medicine health marketing numbers on the Internet sang praises to WHO's "wise decision-making", as if forgetting that they had strongly opposed "judging Chinese medicine with western medicine system". However, the truth is not so beautiful. The report of the Director-General of WHO gives a formal explanation for this revision. Let me explain. 1. This chapter is aimed at all traditional medicine. China, Japan and South Korea only got there first, and will be included in other traditional medicine in the future, such as Ayurveda in India. 2. The purpose of inclusion is to promote international cooperation, collaboration and information sharing of traditional medicine, rather than to recognize the effectiveness of traditional medicine. 3. It only provides a standardized statistical format for data comparison. In the future, it can be used to evaluate the form, frequency, effectiveness, safety, quality, results and cost of traditional medicine and complementary medicine, and can also be better compared with mainstream medicine. The implication is that traditional medicine is not mainstream medicine. In fact, the International Classification of Diseases is a tool for health statistics. Traditional medicine is just a spare tire in the classification of diseases, which is equivalent to the diagnosis of a cold by western medicine. You can also notice that wind-heat is caused by disharmony between exterior and interior and disharmony between lung and qi. For the statistics of mortality, traditional medical chapters are not even spare tires. On 5 June, Nature, the top international authoritative magazine, also published a special comment criticizing the WHO's practice. The article points out that Chinese medicine is a medical system based on the unconfirmed theory of "meridian, qi and blood", and most doctors and medical researchers trained by modern medicine are skeptical about the practice of Chinese medicine. There is no substantial scientific evidence to prove the effectiveness of Chinese medicine, and there are even signs that some drugs and practices of Chinese medicine are harmful to people's health. China people's pursuit of Ejiao not only puts African donkeys under pressure, but also puts tigers, rhinoceroses, pangolins and other animals in danger of extinction. There is little evidence that traditional Chinese medicine preparations based on these animal products can bring any claimed practical benefits. The chapter of the World Health Organization on the diagnosis of traditional Chinese medicine in ICD will not play any benign role in the progress and development of medical science except promoting the sales growth of a large number of unconfirmed treatment methods. Finally, the article points out that the World Health Organization (WHO) is linked with medical systems that have not been scientifically tested, are harmful and may have serious medical consequences, which is unacceptable for an institution that takes the protection of human health as its own responsibility and shoulders the responsibility of protecting human health. User HMS_XIN from Weibo (he is a researcher at Harvard Medical School) is a popular product in Africa. In the past few years, the price of donkeys and their leather has risen sharply. Some countries, including Niger, Tanzania and Botswana, have banned exports to protect the number of donkeys. Last month, Nigeria even banned the slaughter and export of donkeys. This donkey meat craze is driven by the Ejiao market of 654.38+05 billion yuan (2.2 billion US dollars) every year, and Ejiao is made from donkey skin. It is a very precious ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine, which is considered to stop bleeding, relieve cough and treat cancer. With the growth of the affluent population in China, the demand for Ejiao has surged in the past decades: 250g Ejiao can be sold for hundreds of dollars. With the price rising, the number of donkeys in China decreased (from 9.4 million in196 to 4.6 million in 20 16), so China began to pay attention to the African market. Because of China people's enthusiasm for TCM, the survival of other animals is also threatened. Because of the value of traditional Chinese medicine, species such as tiger, rhinoceros, seahorse and pangolin have to face the risk of extinction. This situation is very disturbing, because there is little evidence that traditional Chinese medicine preparations based on these animal products can bring any claimed practical benefits. Traditional Chinese medicine is a medical system based on the undetermined theory of "Meridian and Qi". Most doctors and medical researchers trained in modern medicine are skeptical about the practice of Chinese medicine-there is no substantial scientific evidence to prove the effectiveness of Chinese medicine, and there are even signs that some drugs and practices of Chinese medicine are harmful to people's health. China's * * also contradicts the signals transmitted by TCM. On the one hand, China * * * claims that they support the concept of evidence-based medicine and invest a lot of money to support the modernization and standardization of Chinese medicine. This is welcome-but so far, these programs supported by China only put a thin legal coat on those treatments that can't pass randomized controlled clinical trials. On the other hand, Chinese medicine enterprises have received strong support from the state. In June 5438+10 last year, China reduced the import tax on donkey skins from 5% to 2% to ensure its supply. China vigorously promotes Chinese medicine all over the world, especially with the support of its large-scale "Belt and Road Initiative", which also suppresses domestic criticism of Chinese medicine to some extent. These mixed signals from China are now more worryingly reflected in the international documents adopted by the World Health Organization. The organization just approved the latest version of the WHO International Classification of Diseases last week. This is an influential document that classifies diseases or abnormal physical conditions and assigns relevant disease codes. Internationally, this will be used to determine how doctors diagnose diseases and whether insurance companies pay for treatment. The latest version of ICD (1 1) is the first ICD containing diagnostic criteria of traditional Chinese medicine. Practitioners of Chinese medicine all over the world are celebrating the inclusion of Chinese medicine in this document, because it is very important for the international spread of Chinese medicine system. On May 26th, a newspaper called the integration of Chinese medicine into ICD "an important step in the internationalization of Chinese medicine", which will provide great help for the establishment of Chinese medicine centers around the world. The revision of ICD by the World Health Organization has been widely criticized. The organization defended its position in a statement on April 4. The statement insisted that the Chinese medicine branch of ICD did not discuss any specific medical measures. On the contrary, it aims to give doctors the opportunity to use traditional Chinese medicine and modern medical standards to diagnose patients-it is called "alternative dual disease code". According to the statement, these categories do not involve or recognize any form of Chinese medicine treatment. Of course, traditional medicine should not be completely ruled out: in many cases, it is the only treatment available in many parts of the world. Some life-saving treatments come from natural products. As we all know, artemisinin, a drug for treating malaria, has been found and isolated from Artemisia annua in China. It is very important to distinguish harmful practices, relatively benign practices that may not work, and practices that may be effective but have not been strictly tested by traditional medicine. Even so, it may be counterproductive for WHO to include chapters on ICD traditional medicine. ICD is extensive and detailed, and it may legalize those baseless basic philosophies and some unscientific medical practices. It is true that it may only contain diagnostic criteria, but once it is diagnosed as a related disease with traditional medical markers, patients may seek to use traditional medical treatment methods for treatment. No matter what its goal is, the ICD Chinese Medicine Diagnosis Branch of the World Health Organization will not play any benign role in the progress and development of medical science except promoting the sales growth of a large number of unproven treatments. In the process of defending the integration of Chinese medicine into ICD, WHO mentioned the mission of "* * * enjoying evidence-based information". Everyone can understand this desire to expand medical care and hope to realize this desire through evidence-based medicine. Collecting more evidence about traditional Chinese medicine requires continuous and rigorous basic and clinical research to distinguish harmful practices, beneficial practices and practices with only placebo effect. The World Health Organization (WHO) is associated with those medical systems that have not been scientifically tested, which are harmful and may have serious medical consequences. This is unacceptable for an institution whose responsibility is to protect human health. Disclaimer: The above content comes from the Internet, and the copyright belongs to the original author. If there is any infringement of your original copyright, please let us know and we will delete the relevant content as soon as possible.