To be safe when using oriental medicine

It's time we change the concept that oriental medicine with herbal ingredients is always safe.

oriental medicine

Die of your own medicine

In recent years, the harmful effects of traditional Chinese medicine have become a hot issue in the health sector. Last year, many children were poisoned by lead due to using traditional Chinese medicine, forcing the Ministry of Health to intervene. The World Health Organization office in Vietnam identified Chinese medicine poisoning as a serious threat. The Ministry of Health then conducted tests and came up with a worrying figure: 60% of traditional Chinese medicine was substandard.

Like doctor Nguyen Van Tien, in Binh Thuan, who died because of his own medicine. The incident happened when a patient bought medicine for rheumatism from Mr. Tien and had a seizure. The patient reported it to Mr. Tien, but he did not believe it, so he tried the medicine again and died. The incident shocked many people, because when going to see a doctor and getting medicine, the patient must believe and follow the doctor. But now even the doctor himself died because of the medicine he prescribed, so how can the patient know...

Discussing this issue, Doctor Cao The Hai, Chairman of the Hanoi Oriental Medicine Association, said: "I do not know specifically what that medicine is like so I cannot evaluate it, but from the doctor's subjective perspective, it is possible that the reason why this happened was because the doctor who prepared this medicine was not scientific." In the past, when placing trust in Oriental medicine, people often believed in the doctor's experience, but now, Oriental medicine also needs scientific evidence.

In fact, many people practicing Oriental medicine in Vietnam today are still just learning by rote, without proper training. These people are not licensed to practice, but Vietnamese people still have the mentality of "when sick, pray to all directions", on the brink of death, they still believe in vague things so the risk is high.

The notion that Eastern medicine is safe and not toxic if used incorrectly is wrong. In fact, Eastern medicine can also be toxic, such as minerals such as cinnabar and cinder; herbs can also be toxic, such as aconite, strychnine, and belladonna.

Be careful with the "family heirloom" label

In reality, many pharmacies and traditional healers hang signs saying “traditional medicine”. People also believe in the two words “traditional” and assume that “traditional” means believing in their years of experience and not being proven by modern science.

Traditional medicine practitioner Cao The Hai believes that nowadays people often abuse the word “family heirloom”. The food and medicine industries both abuse the word “family heirloom” to attract customers. However, traditional medicine must also follow a very strict process to be certified and must be reviewed and evaluated by a scientific council.

If approved by the scientific council, the traditional medicine will be safe for the patient. Therefore, physician Hai advises everyone not to believe in the two words "traditional medicine". If patients want to use traditional medicine, they should choose medicine from licensed oriental medicine clinics.

In unlicensed pharmacies, traditional medicine is still self-proclaimed and cannot be proven to be effective.

Physician Cao The Hai also emphasized that patients themselves must be alert in choosing a doctor and a reliable treatment facility. Nowadays, many people have the mindset of "when sick, pray to all directions", whenever they hear someone tell them that this or that place has good medicine and a good doctor, they go there without doing proper research.

That is why many people even drink water to cure diseases, or drink any herbs that the “doctor” recommends. This situation will lead to “losing money and getting sick”, and even causing more diseases.

How to buy good medicine

The Central Institute for Drug Control conducts quality inspections of medicinal herbs and traditional medicine ingredients at a number of traditional medicine hospitals and traditional medicine departments of medical examination and treatment facilities in a number of localities.

The results of the inspection showed that some units used the wrong medicine, used poor quality medicine, with impurities. For example, some medicines were mixed with impurities, dyed and counterfeited such as white linh, hoai duong, tho ty tu, safflower... many medicines were mixed with impurities, some were not used for the right function of the part...

Obviously, the above inspected units are large units in the oriental medicine industry and still bring worrying results, so the private clinics and pharmacies make patients even more suspicious.

How to avoid buying poor quality medicine, can patients check the quality of medicine themselves? The answer of physician Cao The Hai is no. Only experienced physicians can tell the quality of medicine by looking at it. Therefore, the key issue is still finding the right good and dedicated physician.

Therefore, physician Hai advises everyone to find a reputable medical facility: “Of course, licensed state medical facilities can also cause problems. But compared to illegal practices and places with unknown origins, they are clearly safer.”

If you go to a clinic, you must choose a licensed clinic. To identify licensed clinics, patients can look at their signs. Licensed addresses will have full information on the sign: address, clinic owner name, practice license, etc.

To be safe, each person should only use oriental medicine when sick, avoiding the notion of "just use it, if it doesn't improve vertically, it will improve horizontally".

Vietnam consumes about 50,000 tons of medicinal herbs each year, but 60-70% are imported, including many herbs of unknown origin.

According to Health and Life