Tab's Personal Space

This is my space for ranting on my daily lives.

Friday, April 29, 2005

Chinese Herbal Medicine vs Western Pill Oriented Medicine

I came across this odd little article about FDA's approval on 'Lizard Spit' as a treatment for diabetes. Article

....the immediate image for me is this has to be part of some 'Herbal Medicine'. As I was growing up, I've seen some pretty weird things that go into 'medicinal soup'...ask me about it person...and I'll be glad to go into gory details. However, many people regardless of ethnicity thinks its kind of weird and odd and a little hokey or even witch-like when people use 'herbal medicine' instead of taking miracle in pill.

I know a couple of my extended family members...definitely turns away from any medicine that are not part of the Western world. They reject everything that's not westernized, especially the 'herbal knowledge'...but all of a sudden, I see this article about 'Lizard Spit'...and I think back of all the 'brewing' my mom does in her kitchen when I was growing up...and um, sorry, hands-down, herbal medicine was way ahead of its time. Just because the FDA approves it...doesn't mean that all of a sudden this is something new and inventiv. It only means that it took a heck of a long time for the government to go through its process and hoops while everybody else in the other side of the world is already going through the next phase of treating diabetes.

The cynic in me just reads this article as...oh great...now the FDA is going to use the 'chemical formula' or its brand name as 'Byetta'. It's all about marketing....give a diabetic 2 person who grew up in the western part of the world a lizard and tell him/her to squeeze some spit out from it for medicine...the universal response would be like "EW...." [don't worry, I'll also have the same reaction]...yet give a person from the eastern part of the world....they'll be like "Hey, thanks for the freebie!".

Don't know where I'm really going with this...but just want to point out the differences in culture and I'm also tired of the 'Miracle Pill' society that we live in today. You have a problem? Take a pill. Whether it be a diet pill, depression pill, sugar pill, etc.

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