October 2008 Archives

Two Experts from Beijing to Talk About Shen (Spirit) in Chinese Medicine

Continuing Education Classes for Acupuncturists & Students

Sponsored by New York College of Traditional Chinese Medicine
10 AM - 5: 30 PM,
November 9, 2008
Room 106, 155 First Street,
Mineola, NY 11501

Jing (Essence), Qi (Energy) and Shen (Spirit) are Three Treasures described in Chinese Medicine. The doctrine also says that the superior practitioners are focusing their treatment on Shen (Spirit), while general practitioners focus on the Xing (Physical).

Recently, most practitioners of Chinese medicine have come to know the importance of Shen (Spirit), but how much this concept is really applied in their practice is still a question mark.

At this November 9 seminar, two experts from Beijing, China will give a talk about applying the concept of Shen in clinical practice.

Fees:
$60 for both talks, discounts for Acupuncture students and NYCTCM alumni

For details on these two seminars and to learn more about the NYCTCM CEU program, please go to the New York College of Traditional Chinese Medicine website CEU page where you can download the registration form.

Acupuncturist Anna Stephens applies needles to patient Linda Aron in efforts to help facilitate Aron's digestion at Postels Community Health Center, part of the Grinnell Regional Medical Center in Grinnell, Iowa. Photo by Doug Wells for USA TODAY

The American Hospital Association says ...that 37% of hospitals around the USA make complementary and alternative treatments available -- including acupuncture, touch therapy, and music and art therapy. A similar survey by the hospital group in 2005 found that one in four hospitals offered such services...

The majority of hospitals say that patient satisfaction is the No. 1 way they determine if an alternative treatment is beneficial, closely followed by clinical data on a treatment. Cleveland Clinic just completed a complementary and alternative therapy pilot program for patients undergoing heart surgery. Half of the patients -- more than 1,700 -- opted for spiritual care, counseling, art, music, touch therapy or guided imagery, and 93% of patients surveyed said the services were helpful.

Guidance from doctor groups for patients with chronic pain has helped bolster doctors' acceptance of complementary treatments, says Richard Nahin, senior adviser for scientific coordination and outreach at the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

He cites new guidelines for treating lower back pain issued jointly last year by the American College of Physicians and the American Pain Society, which suggest many alternative therapies as potential treatments. "As doctors become more aware, hospitals will also follow," Nahin says.

USA Today Health News 9-15-2008 for full article

Pentagon researches alternative treatments

The Pentagon is seeking new ways to treat troops suffering from combat stress or brain damage by researching such alternative methods as acupuncture, meditation, yoga and the use of animals as therapy, military officials said. "This new theme is a big departure for our cautious culture," Dr. S. Ward Casscells, the Pentagon's assistant secretary for health affairs, told USA TODAY. Casscells said he pushed hard for the new research, because "we are struggling with" post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) "as we are with suicide and we are increasingly willing to take a hard look at even soft therapies." About 300,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans suffer from PTSD or major depression, and about 320,000 may have experienced at least a mild concussion or brain injury in combat, according to a RAND Corp. study released this year.

The Army reported a record 115 suicides last year, and suicides this year are at a rate that may exceed that, said Col. Eddie Stephens, the Army's deputy director for human resources policy. The Department of Veterans Affairs reported last month that suicides among Iraq- and Afghanistan-era veterans from all services reached a record high of 113 in 2006, the latest year for which there were figures.

Some military hospitals and installations already use alternative therapies, such as acupuncture as stress relievers for patients. The research will see whether the alternatives work so the Pentagon can use them more, said Army Brig. Gen. Loree Sutton, head of the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury.

Many of the treatments have been used for centuries, Sutton said, "so it just makes sense to bring all potential therapies to bear." Some soldiers who suffer from PTSD are reluctant to share their experiences in traditional psychiatric therapy, said Col. Charles Engel, an Army psychiatric epidemiologist. He said those soldiers may be more willing to use acupuncture and other alternatives if they are effective.

Initial research this summer with combat veterans showed that acupuncture relieved PTSD symptoms and eased pain and depression, Engel said. "Improvements were relatively rapid and clinically significant," he said.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-10-07-holistic_N.htm  for full article

NEJM amicus brief supports failure-to-warn claims against Wyeth Laboratories.

A group of current and former editors of The New England Journal of Medicine, along with several well-known NEJM contributors, recently filed an amicus brief in U.S. Supreme Court, charging pharmaceutical companies with deliberately withholding relevant adverse-reaction data when their profits are at stake. The brief was filed in conjunction with the Wyeth v. Levine case, in which drug giant Wyeth Laboratories is appealing a Vermont Supreme Court decision awarding $6.8 million to Diana Levine, who had to have her arm amputated after improper administration of the Wyeth anti-nausea drug Phenargan.

Levine's lawsuit charges that the drug contained inadequate warnings and instructions for use. Wyeth, in turn, is claiming that FDA authority to approve drug labeling preempts state failure-to-warn litigation regarding prescription medication. In the summary of its argument supporting Levine, the amicus brief stated:

"The argument of Petitioner [Wyeth] and its amici ('Petitioner/Amici') that federal preemption of state law failure-to-warn claims involving prescription drugs will actually make the world a safer place is riddled with factual fallacies. First, contrary to Petitioner's/Amici's necessary premise, the FDA is in no position to ensure the safety of prescription drugs. Not only is the FDA seriously hampered in its ability to determine the risks of drugs before they are approved for sale, but it has proven inadequate to the task of addressing hazards that only become apparent after a drug has been widely marketed to an unsuspecting public. Post-approval dangers posed by drugs placed into the market are unfortunately quite common. However, the FDA's ability to either anticipate these risks or react expeditiously once they have been revealed has been limited by serious information-gathering constraints in both pre- and post-approval settings."

Part of the difficulty the FDA has in addressing drug risks, according to the brief, stems from the fact that it is forced to rely on the manufacturers themselves for outcome data upon which to base its decision to either approve or disapprove a drug. The brief went on to use the examples of three different drugs - Pondimin/Redux, Vioxx and Trasylol - in which the manufacturers allegedly withheld key information from the FDA and strongly argued against stricter label warnings, all the while continuing to market these drugs to an unsuspecting public. In all cases, the companies allegedly manufactured data, ghostwrote articles for medical journals and/or withheld negative findings from the FDA.

The worst of these offenders in terms of estimated patient deaths was the anticoagulant Trasylol, marketed by Bayer. The drug was found to cause kidney failure. According to the amicus brief: "Between 1999 and 2005, Bayer generated over $935 million in revenue from sales of Trasylol with over $353 million in 2005. Bayer forecast that Trasylol would some day generate upwards of $600 million annually." Although exact numbers may never be released, an estimated 242,000 deaths were likely attributable to Trasylol between its release in 1993 and its eventual withdrawal from the market in May 2008.

In light of these examples and others, the brief argues strongly in favor of the FDA and the legal system working together to enhance consumer protection:

"Product liability lawsuits and the FDA have peacefully coexisted for seventy years for one simple reason: they have complementary, rather than conflicting, goals. The tort system complements the federal regulatory structure by providing a mechanism for compensating victims of hazardous drugs. Product liability litigation provides the FDA with key information unearthed in litigation that the agency can use to better protect the public from unsafe and inadequately labeled drugs. At the same time, the tort system and the FDA are similarly constrained.

"Whereas the FDA, as a regulatory body, weighs the risks against the benefits of a drug, in 'failure-to-warn' litigation most state courts require a similar balancing between the cost of care owed to a patient versus the prospective harm."

The brief went on to conclude:

"[G]iven that pharmaceutical companies have been known to equate increased warnings with a loss of sales, they would have an incentive to delay warnings as long as possible. As has been shown, certain pharmaceutical companies have already proven themselves unwilling to prioritize safety over profits, even when faced with the threat of civil liability. It is chilling to imagine how such companies might conduct themselves if the threat of tort liability for dangerous drugs were eliminated entirely by virtue of federal preemption."

The full text of the amicus brief, along with all other briefs filed in the lawsuit, is available online at www.abanet.org/publiced/preview/briefs/nov08.shtml#wyeth.

This article was published in Acupuncture Today, The Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine News Source

Together with acupuncture, herbal medicine is a major pillar of Chinese medicine. The Chinese pharmacopoeia lists over 6,000 different medicinal substances in terms of their properties and the disharmonies that they were helpful with. There are about 600 different herbs in common use today.

Herbs are classified in two major dimensions. The first dimension refers to the temperature characteristics of the herb, namely hot (re), warm (wen), cold (han), neutral (ping), and aromatic. The second dimension refers to the taste property of the herb, namely sour (suan), bitter (ku), sweet (gan), spicy (xin), and salty (xian).

Please go to the http://www.365tcm.com/ blog to read the rest of this article and find more very informative articles on Traditional Chinese Medicine.