Much of it does work. Indeed, there is plenty of scientific medicine in Europe which works which isn't used in the US (ammonium bituminosulfonate comes to mind).
Here's a problem:
- You can only bring profitable things to market.
- Anything used in the EU, China, or India for more than 20 years cannot be patented.
- Processes like FDA approval costs $$$
- If you receive FDA approval, you'll be undercut by vendors selling for commodity prices
There are other problems like it. Overall, the set of common medicines available in the US, China, and the EU differ quite a bit (e.g. you can't buy basic American antihistamines like diphenhydramine in Chinese pharmacies).
Really, the best way to solve this is public funding:
- Provide research grants for universities to run traditional medicines through RCTs, see which ones work, and publish results.
- Find some way to run the ones which work through FDA without private funding.
That could separate the good from the bad. My hope is a summit like this helps do that.
Here's a problem:
- You can only bring profitable things to market.
- Anything used in the EU, China, or India for more than 20 years cannot be patented.
- Processes like FDA approval costs $$$
- If you receive FDA approval, you'll be undercut by vendors selling for commodity prices
There are other problems like it. Overall, the set of common medicines available in the US, China, and the EU differ quite a bit (e.g. you can't buy basic American antihistamines like diphenhydramine in Chinese pharmacies).
Really, the best way to solve this is public funding:
- Provide research grants for universities to run traditional medicines through RCTs, see which ones work, and publish results.
- Find some way to run the ones which work through FDA without private funding.
That could separate the good from the bad. My hope is a summit like this helps do that.