Hijacking The Albert Einstein Award

A couple of weeks ago, a netter reported on New Thread that a suspiciously large number of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) practitioners are claiming themselves to be recipients of an "Albert Einstein World Award of Science". Indeed, a simple google search on the "Albert Einstein World Award of Science" in Chinese ("阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦世界科学奖") yielded many such claims:

1985: Zhu Renkan (朱仁康)
1987: Liu QiuFang (刘猷枋)
1987: Tu Youyou (屠呦呦)
1988: Yu Guiqing (余桂清)
1988: Tang Youzhi (唐由之)
1989: Xie Zongwan (谢宗万)
1989: Chen Keji (陈可冀)
1990: Cheng Xinnong (程莘农)

Among them, Chen Keji and Cheng Xinnong are academicians in the Chinese Academy of Science and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, respectively. There are also indications that more people had received this award, all of whom are TCM practioners in the Academy of TCM.

The Albert Einstein World Award of Science is a prestigous award given out annually by The World Cultural Council headquartered in Mexico. A list of its recipents are available on their web site. None of the above names existed.

Fang Zhouzi recently wrote to the World Cultural Council for an inquiry, and received the following reply from its General Secretary, which he posted on New Thread:

（Certainly, there is a misunderstanding regarding this situation. I have already checked, all these people were candidates nominated for the Albert Einstein Award in the respective mentioned years. But none of them got the Award.

I have checked our records and found that, the Council has sent them by post mail in those days, a diploma recognizing their participation as candidates to the Albert Einstein Award in the respective years. I would like to inform you that the winners must receive the Award in person at the Award Ceremony, the Award consist of a Medal a diploma and a cheque.）

Apparently, these distinguished TCM practitioners, including our Academicians, had mistaken a receipt of acknowledgment as an actual award, never mind that they had never received any medal or check.

Doping in Traditional Chinese Medicine

One of the biggest advantages of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), its supporters argue, is that the medications are made from natural materials such as herbs or animal parts and are therefore safe, without the side-effects of most modern medications.

But the effectiveness of TCM has never been scientifically established. So much so that even the manufacturers of TCM are not confident in their usefulness. Therefore, it has become a common practice to add components of modern medicine into traditional prescriptions and still sell them as TCM medicines. These components, and their side-effects, are rarely disclosed and the drugs are continued to be sold over the counter, even for the consumption of infants.

There had been media reports in the past that TCM medicines exported from China were found of containing components that do not belong in TCM.

As the Beijing Olympics approaches, authorities in China began to worry about potential doping scandals. In mid-March, the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) circulated a list of TCM medicines that are known to contain stimulates or dopes. It advised the manufacturers of these drugs that they should have included an "Athletes Caution" label so that athletes would not be using these and be found guilty of doping.

The list was quite an eye-opener. It was first reported in New Threads on March 22, by Zhang Jiawei, who pointed out that over 500 TCM medicines have been found to contain prasterone or DHEA, a steroid hormone.

In all, 1,227 TCM medicines were identified to have stimulates of some kind. Fang Zhouzi pointed out that, while some of them existed naturally in herbs, others, such as prasterone (普拉雄酮), hydrochlorothiazide(氢氯噻嗪), clenbuterol (克仑特罗), could not have come from natural components but have to be intentionally added during the manufacturing process.

While these TCM, or fake TCM if you will, use doped modern medicine components to enhance their effectiveness, they are actually sold with a higher price than the corresponding non-TCM pills, which are of higher quality and better understood side-effects. Consumers who had bought these TCM medicines over the counter are unlikely to be aware of these additives and their purported effects and side-effects.

Much worse, among the 533 TCM that contains prasterone, many of them are intended for the use of babies and infants. It's a mystery why prasterone has to be added for baby medicines, but their existence will certainly harm the natural growth process of these little patients.

It seems so far that the SFDA is too pre-occupied with making sure the nation's athletes are aware of the danger of doing in these TCM medicines to taking any necessary actions in safe-guarding the health of the general public.

Fang Zhouzi and OSAIC Launches a Book Donation Drive

Fang Zhouzi's popular science books have been selling well in China. One book in particular, Achieving Health Scientifically (科学成就健康), is a best seller. The book is a treatise of modern and scientific knowledge in every day life, including medicine, nutrition, and life styles. It also rebuttals many common misconceptions and disinformation in these areas, most of them originated from the ill-conceived beliefs of the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM).

In particular, the book provides a laundry list of known side-effects of many popular TCM medicines. The medicines are openly sold over the counter in China and abroad, often without any mention of their (sometimes deadly) side-effects.

The book is very well received in China. Many young people have bought extra copies for their parents and elder relatives in the hope that they could be persuaded by a more scientific view of health.

Now, Fang Zhouzi and his publisher has decided to donate about 5,000 copies of this book to local libraries and organizations. They will provide the books for free and the publisher in China will also provide the manpower needed in processing the books with no charge.

All they needed is funding to provide the shipping expense. For this purpose, the Organization of Scientific and Academic Integrity in China (OSAIC) has launched a book donation drive to raise the fund. The shipping cost is estimated to be $1 USD per book. It does not take much, but could have a huge impact. (Most of the instructions are in Chinese, but you can also easily understand the donation instructions in English.)

A Combinatorial Interpretation of TCM's Emperor Court Hiearchy

Dr. Chen Zhu (陈竺) is not only an outstanding biologist and researcher in China, he is also the head of the Ministry of Health in the government. He is also well known as a strong believer and advocate of the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). As a scientist and health official, he has frequently spoken out the importance of TCM as a cultural heritage as well as useful means for curing diseases and improving health. With his position, he is working on providing more and more fundings into the TCM.

He is also active in using the modern biological research tools, particularly the systems biology, to prove the philosophy and methodology in TCM. His latest result is causing a mini wave in the Chinese media.

In a paper just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), Dr. Chen and his coworkers (including his wife Chen Saijuan), described their dissection of mechanisms of a TCM formula as an effective treatment for promyelocytic leukemia.

The TCM formula, or the medicine Compound Huangdai Tablets (复方黄黛片), has been available and in active medical use in China for many years. There are a few earlier researches testifying its effectiveness in treating leukemia, but none of them appear to meet the rigorous standard of drug testing. Chen's new paper provided more evidence of the drug's effect at cell level.

But Chen et al. also go further. They dissected the compound medicine into three major active ingredients and claimed that they acted in combinatorial synergy in treatment. That is, one ingredient could not do the job as effectively without the presence of the others.

Still, there is nothing terribly new here.

But when the news of this paper's publication is reported in China, it took an entirely different tone. China Daily, in its English report, was quite modest in claiming that "TCM applauded for leukemia treatment". Other media went much further. Based on a press release from Chen's institute itself, the news was widely reported as PNAS's recognition of TCM itself. Chen's research, the reports said, not only shown the effectiveness of one drug, but also proved the ancient TCM philosophy of how to construct a compound drug: 君臣佐使.

Simply put, this philosophy models four components or roles in a compound drug as a court of an emperor. The emperor (君) serves as the principle in attacking the disease; the minister (臣) acts as assisting and augmenting the principle; the assistant (佐) also assists the principle and counter-reacts any possible side-effects of the principle; the servants (使) acts to deliver the medicine where it should go.

Such terms did not exist in Chen's paper itself, although the paper emphasizes on the combinatorial synergy of the components it identified. However, a diagram in the press release displays their belief that their research indeed is based on and provides evidence of this ancient philosophy:

Interestingly enough though, they only had three components so the two cohorts, the ministers and the assistants, have to double-duty as delivering servants as well.

The press release and news report also contains many descriptions of the "Yin" and "Yang" of the components, which did not exist in the research paper itself, just as the above diagram.

Fang Zhouzi criticizes these news report as another example of distortion to fit its own agenda of advocating TCM. Also, due to Dr. Chen is a member of PNAS' editorial board and PNAS' archaic policy, Fang questions whether this paper has been properly peer-reviewed.

Science Magazine Reports Disputed Research in TCM

The current issue of Science has a report titled "Lifting the Veil on Traditional Chinese Medicine". You can read Fang Zhouzi's translation, as well as the original English, here. It's about the new "Herbalome Project" in Dalian, China, a "15-year effort to identify the constituents of herbal preparations used as medications for centuries in China".

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has long been an ultra-controversial issue in Fang Zhouzi's fraud-busting efforts, as he believes that TCM is a practice of pseudoscience that has detrimental side-effects to public health. For many years, he has advocated a rational approach to abolish TCM as a medical practice but examine the medicines for their true effects and side-effects (废医验药).

In this report, Fang was quoted as stating that "TCM is not based on science but based on mysticism, magic, and anecdote" and the Herbalome Project is "a waste of research funds". Reflecting the current status of TCM, the report says:

Since the Mao Zedong era, the government has strongly supported TCM, in part because it was too expensive to offer Western medicine to the masses. It remains taboo for Chinese media to label TCM as pseudoscience. "Criticizing TCM is unthinkable to many Chinese and almost like committing a traitorous act," says Fang.