Finding Herbal Alternatives to Bear Bile - WSPA

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Traditional Medicine and bear bileAlthough the vast majority of Traditional Medicine practitionerstoday no longer use bear bile, it is still consumed in significantquantities. The use of bear bile in Traditional Medicine datesback over 3000 years. It is classified as ‘cold’ and ‘bitter’ and itsuses include the treatment of fever, swelling and pain in cases oftrauma, liver conditions and sore eyes. Bear bile is still consumedin many different countries around the world, often as a result ofillegal trade. Some of the largest consumer countries includeChina, Japan and Republic of Korea.Bear FarmingIn the early 1980s, in an attempt toreduce pressures on wild populations,China started to farm bears in orderto extract their bile on a commercialbasis. The practice of bear farminghas since spread to other countries inAsia, most notably Vietnam and theRepublic of Korea.“We definitely do not have to usebear bile as it can be replaced byherbs, which are cheaper too.”Dr Sun Ji XianThe Chinese Association of PreventativeMedicine, Beijing, ChinaMost bears kept in bear farms live in cages measuring around 1 metrewide, 1 metre high and 2 metres long. Many bears are wounded andscarred from rubbing or hitting themselves against the bars of their tinymetal cages, where they cannot stand up nor easily turn around. Manysurvive in these conditions for over 20 years.In China a surgical operation is carried out to create a tube leading intothe bear’s gall bladder to allow the bile to be extracted. Untrained workerswith no veterinary skills often carry out this operation. The animals endurethe most appalling levels of cruelty and neglect. During WSPAinvestigations, bears were seen with inflamed, infected and bleedingwounds, open incisions for bile extraction and swellings in the abdominalarea. In some farms sick bears lay recumbent without movement. InVietnam bile is extracted using ultrasound equipment and a hypodermicsyringe, bile is extracted approximately once a month. In Korea, bears donot have bile extracted from them when they are alive. Instead, the bearsare raised to a certain age and are then slaughtered for their body parts.World Society for the Protection of Animals —— Finding Alternatives to bear bile5
For animal welfare reasons alone, WSPA believes that the practice ofbear farming should be phased out completely. However, many traditionalmedicine practitioners have stated that the use of bear bile is alsounnecessary and that many alternative remedies exist. Below are a numberof statements, gathered by Animals Asia Foundation (AAF), from peoplewho believe that bear bile has no place in modern Traditional Medicine.“Herbal alternatives have the same effect - so why kill theanimals?”Dr Ho Ka CheongPresident Hong Kong Chinese Herbalist Association LtdWorld Society for the Protection of Animals —— Traditional Medicine and bear bile“There are many hundreds of ingredients in our Pharmacopoeia,and whatever beneficial effect may be achieved by usingendangered species, there are equally beneficial effects byusing other alternatives. Please understand that we are in thebusiness of healing people, not in the business of causingdanger to wild animal species.”Word-Fei CheungAssistant Manager of the Institute of Chinese Medicine, China.“One main reason why I have, all along, participated in thework of protecting endangered animals is to make the publicunderstand that the majority of Chinese medicine made fromendangered medicine is not indispensable. We can easilyreplace them with herbal medicines, which are cheaper andeasier to find. If the Chinese medicine community ceases touse endangered animals as medicine, it can not only join inhelping to save endangered species from extinction, but canalso raise the international reputation of Chinese medicine tothat of a sophisticated branch of medicine.”Dr. Lo Yan WoChinese Association of Medicine and Philosophy, Hong Kong.6
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