Romano Prodi clears traditional Chinese medicine and promotes two days of dialogue with Western medicine in Bologna, the first step towards a permanent discussion table between parallel but still distant worlds. "Dialogue on human health between TCM culture and western medicine culture" is the title of the appointment opened this morning by Prodi, in his capacity as president of the Foundation for cooperation among peoples (founded by the former prime minister in 2008) and in which among others John Dalli, European Commissioner for health, Xu Jialu, former vice president of the Chinese Parliament, Paul Unschuld, Angela Merkel's adviser for health relations with China, as well as the dean of the Bologna medical faculty Sergio Stefoni.
"This is the start of a cultural confrontation – Stefoni specified – because every step towards traditional Chinese medicine and its remedies will have to follow the classic scientific paths. It is an approach that is good for our world, where populations are aging and pharmaceutical and healthcare costs are increasing, and it is good for the East, which needs to see some of the results achieved proven and accepted by the international scientific community. In many pain therapies, acupuncture has proved to be effective, but even in China an infection must be treated with antibiotics”.
In short, the Faculty of Medicine of Bologna is treading water, but confirms that there are good reasons to start a discussion. No to herbs and pills that do not pass the necessary tests, yes to natural substances that have been shown to be effective in the prevention and treatment of tumors, based on scientific reports, such as sulforaphane, taken from cabbage and broccoli. After all, the Hematology Institutes of Paris and Shanghai have been collaborating since 1982 on leukemia and have verified the efficacy of arsenic and vitamin A on malignant cells, making this tumor curable in 90% of cases. Today, a product of traditional Chinese medicine can also be used for some cardiovascular diseases, the only non-European product authorized in the old continent. Pharmaceutical companies on the other hand have been interested in traditional Chinese medicine for years, which boasts a turnover of approximately 30 billion euros worldwide. And in some cases we have seen the result: for example, in the fight against malaria where traditional medicines no longer worked, a well-known company has used artemisia, a plant used for millennia beyond the great wall.
Between blind trust and great suspicions, there is therefore an intermediate path that Bologna is experimenting with, with one eye on health and one on business. In Europe, people who turn to alternative medicines every year represent 15,6% of the population and acupuncture and moxibustion (heating parts of the skin with vegetable products) are the most popular treatments. In Germany, 90% of the population consider these therapies real medical treatments, while 39% have experienced them at least once. In Great Britain, over one million people are treated with traditional Chinese medicine and 3000 clinics also offer this type of treatment (a thousand in London alone). In France, more than 8% of doctors use notions drawn from this medicine, which looks at the patient as a whole, trying to keep him healthy rather than cure him. Consider that once in China doctors were paid only if the patient did not get sick.
Today, traditional Chinese medicine seems to have a little less appeal in its own home, given that there are only 3232 hospitals in the whole country (for 471 beds), but the paradox is reduced as they look to the clinical departments that implement these practices: 30, for a demand for diagnosis and specialized treatment on the part of 360 million people. Tomorrow will close with the signing of the "Bologna Declaration" by Prodi and Xu Jiliau to set up the permanent table and make it the annual appointment.
