May 5, 2022, NOTE: This version is now significantly outdated as I have instead chosen to mirror it to my Medium blog, and soon my LinkedIn as well. I’m leaving this version posted as I have linked back to it numerous times in my other blogs and it is too tedious to fix that with the limited time that I have.
Greetings! This is my workspace to consolidate and refine points of contention I have with the skepticism/misunderstanding of TCM I encounter from the capitalist biomedical community. Rather than commenting diatribes, or private mumblings I see it more worthwhile to have something to refer skeptics to while I hammer out my exhaustive (exhausting) thesis essay.
I have pulled these points from scattered sections across my website, completely admitting they need elaboration (especially in their… direct tone), and instead will now refer all “skeptic” links here to a unified location for the time being. There are certainly residual repeated points needing to be ironed out, and references ohh the references to come.
As I write in the intro to my Covid Resources page: “… As Western/modern medicine grappled with developing these vaccines under extreme pressure, I also strongly feel that little to no actual individualized immune system supportive measures remain being discussed broadly, despite the fact that we do have tools to help at our disposal. This cannot be stressed enough – especially for at-risk populations. We need both vaccines – and deeper education on improving our overall health, especially now that we face the shadow Long Covid pandemic – something which TCM is extremely adept at managing. Traditional Chinese/Eastern Medicine (TCM) is indeed capable of being an assistant method of prevention and treatment (alongside, of course, all standard CDC/WHO/local governmental guidelines – this goes without saying!). We’ve been at this in an unbroken tradition, now backed by modern science – for millennia. A brief glimpse provided below (our textbooks are significantly more detailed and not available online). So I’m not talking about fringe quack supplements here.”
The upcoming additions will add dozens of pages of discussion and citation as well as general reformatting.
Then the meantime, as you can see, like Part 1 of my Misinformation Series I dive right in with terminology.
Introduction
But wait – am I not being hypocritical by on one hand, writing in my previous essays completely backing the world-wide vaccination program, and then in an about face, now deriding that same system that produced these same vaccines? Is it not hypocritical to refer people to “Science Based Medicine” websites – and then in another swoop, dismantle those same websites as I do below?
No. Are we not allowed to support science-based vaccines *and* still critique the capitalist pharmaceutical industry? As I’ll demonstrate I am simply asking everyone to stay in their lanes. If you come across an anti-vax conspiracy, be inquisitive to learn more from peer-reviewed evidence. Vaccines are science-based medicine – to which I turn to science-based peer-reviewed experts. If you come across TCM – be inquisitive to learn more from peer reviewed evidence based TCM professionals such as those I reference below. I am simply debunking misinformation in both directions. No gaps in logic, here.
TCM TERMINOLOGY: Aren’t the TCM “organs” or the concept of “Qi” just primitive/don’t exist/are unscientific?
Misinformation in the COVID-19 Era: Herbs & Hypocrisy
For further reading:
– Combating Misinformation in the COVID-19 Era – Parts 1-2
– Misinformation in the COVID-19 Era – Parts 3-4: Dangers & Delusions
The height of Western/”Science-Based” arrogance, right here:
“”TCM mixtures can be toxic, contaminated or adulterated with prescription drugs; they can also interact with prescription drugs,” Ernst said. It can also give patients a false sense of security, leading them to neglect proven medications or therapies.”
You mean, like nearly any pharmaceutical drug? Any herbal formula in the developed world undergoes testing, in Canada, we have NPN’s to protect from this. And remind me again – which “proven therapies” are we speaking of, here? Ventilators? A little too late, don’t you think?
Would you go to the pharmacist and take a random drug off the shelf and take it? Instead of fear mongering, shouldn’t you be educating people on the importance of working with a trained professional?
“We need to know which specific product is claimed to work and what is the evidence”
Okay so keep twiddling your thumbs waiting for research in formulas perfected over centuries – research which so often is the exact antithesis of how *individual-based* TCM formulas are prescribed – while people are dying.
Yes or no: Do customized TCM formulations/acupuncture protocols work, when prescribed by renowned peer-reviewed TCM doctors trained in pre-Mao “Classical” Chinese Medicine (CCM vs TCM) methods* who check & confirm each other’s approaches to reach consensus on the individual formula prescribed, compared to a placebo, in a group with a large sample size.
*Mao standardized “TCM” taking it out of clinical context from the classical channel theory model, and countless other Westernizations that most “TCM” studies are now based on. I will elaborate this in a further section. Did you know that – dear skeptic?
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