Q: What’s the biggest obstacle to finding a possible cure for Alzheimer’s Disease?

A: The traffic in Shanghai.

Only a few days ago, I was writing about how Traditional Chinese Medicine has been found to be useful in IVF.

Today’s London Times has even bigger news: it’s very likely that TCM can help to treat, or even cure, Alzheimer’s Disease.

Key quotes for me:

“China is going like gang-busters, particularly if you’re thinking in terms of medicine and pharmaceuticals. In many cases their labs are as good, if not better, than labs here or in the US. A lot of Chinese scientists also are moving back. When you ask them why, they say it’s too good a place not to be right now.”

and

“I think it just takes a little bit of open-mindedness.”

There are two lessons here: first, China is going to be huge in the pharmaceuticals industry. Second, TCM may not be phrased in the language and concepts of Western medicine, but at some point the doubters will have to accept that the Chinese are neither stupid nor primitive and, over 4000 years of civilization, have actually learned something about treating disease and maintaining health. The fact that TCM uses a different paradigm does not invalidate it. Sadly, the vitriol has already begun to appear in the article’s comments section.

Heh. Although I have to give the Times kudos for publishing this article, I do have to wonder why it appeared in the Women’s section!

3 Comments »

1. 

   They just don’t like our chinese needles. It doesn’t come with some sort of “Magick Elixir!”.

   Heh

   Comment by Stephan — February 17, 2008 @ 10:21 am

2. 

   Great, great news, by the way.

   My mother’s parents had Alzheimer…

   Comment by Stephan — February 17, 2008 @ 10:22 am

3. 

   Simple. Women are more gullible.

   /runs for the hills/

   Seriously though, the limitations of biomedicine are increasingly emerging into the public consciousness, and that’s a good thing. We shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, certainly, but thinking that current bioscience has almost all the answers is dangerous thinking.

   Comment by eastpaw — March 6, 2008 @ 10:32 pm

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