" Snake Oil " is a traditional Chinese medicine......so what went wrong ??

Question

To day almost all Chinese products are being called " Snake Oil " fraudalent, fake dangerious to health and certanly questionable ..so what's going on. Is it true China is 100 years behind the west when it comes to ethics ,health.

Answer 1

NO, The Chinese are not behind in their medicine. They combine "traditional" medicine with "western" in their hospitals. Often acupuncture or traditional medicine will work where "western" medicine does not. At other times "Western Medicine" is the better approach. There are times when a combination of the two types is a better way of treating a problem. It all depends upon the situation and problem.

I feel that you should check your history, and you will find that a lot of the "Western Medicine" we have is derived from Chinese and Asian traditional medicine. --- Quinine (Chincana Bark or Jesuits Bark) was used by the Chinese for Malaria long before the West started using it. The Chinese knew more about surgery, the anatomy and the blood system long before 'Europeans", mostly because the Catholic Church interfered with science. Asians washed themselves and their clothes, and were therefore healthier than Europeans who only started washing themselves and their clothes in the late 1860's onwards -- some not even until the start of the 20th Century.

Answer 2

In the early 1800s, ladles were dipped into pools of crude oil, found throughout the US. Different portions were separated out and this gunk was bottled and sold as “Patent Medicines.”

The effects of these potions did, on occasion, make people “feel” better. They cured nothing but rather suppressed the ability to express symptoms. The long term effects of these potions were a heightened toxicity in the body—often leading to problems worse than the original disease.

The FDA was created and given power to control the distribution of these petroleum-derived chemicals. They were defined as poisonous and the 1934 Act giving the FDA lordship over these compounds even referred to the public as “ignorant and credulous.” The result was that Doctors became the only people who could legally tell another person to take poison without prosecution (it is otherwise against the law to knowingly tell another person to take poison).

Fast forward to today.

Because most of the chemical-manipulation technology was funding by big oil money at the turn of the century, it is still the easiest for a drug company to manipulate large hydrocarbon molecules…in other words, most drugs are still made from petroleum derived chemicals. From a financial standpoint, this is a great way to get a lot of money out of a barrel of crude oil. $3 for a gallon of gas is nothing compared to the cost per gram of a petroleum-derived drug molecule.

Think about this, the origin patent medicine is responsible for today’s drug technology, industry and culture. What’s more, people “ignorantly and credulously” refer to anything natural or alternative as “snake oil” thus playing into the brainwashing that only established toxic-therapy is viable and has actually reversed the origins of this term.

Snake Oil got lumped into this category out of ignorance. For the most part, snake oils are Omega 3 fatty acid supplements which is now known as an essential nutrient.

Answer 3

That is one complicated question.

On the one hand Chinese medicine is powerful stuff. On the other hand, China has a problem with exporting poison to the US. Sure, it's unscrupulous parties that ruin it for everyone else.

But with China's sorry record on policing its export products, it does make those of us in the US a bit leary.

If you're in China, you might have less to worry about. But maybe the Chinese government doesn't shed any tears when an American is hurt by its products.

It's really very sad, considering China's historically great contribution to herbal medicine.

Good luck and be well.

Kelley

Answer 4

Let me tell you one thing, any traditional form of medicine from China or India or Ethnic American Indians is not truly testable using any existing instruments. But it is observed by the general feeling that people feel they cure in many cases and fail in many other.

The problem basically lies in the diagnosis of the diseases. Many modern viral or bacterial infections were not known in the ancient medicine system. Many ancient diseases are not any more or have changed their faces due to very nature of viral and bacterial mutations in 1000s of years now. So these all might play a vital role in diagnosing them in an ancient approach or a modern approach. Another important impediment is prejudices on both sides, those who support Indian ayurvedic or traditional Chinese versus modern Allopathic.

And as for the essential oils, many chemicals have been just named but not known how it would react in human body or animal body. Some are toxic even in smallest amounts or just inhaled too much are taken orally. It is the case with every allopathic medicine over the counter, nothing comes without a side-effect.

Every medical lab would agree with you that they really do not know how the many over the counter medicines cures but they know it cures from experimental observations and repeated trials.