39-Old Korean Teacher Died after Bee Sting Injection

In Korea, a woman died of a cardiac arrest after bee-sting injection by Korean Medicine Doctor. The police is investigating the possibility of medical accidents.

A 39-year-old school teacher visited a Korean Medicine clinic on May 14, after feeling pain in her lower back. Her pain did not improve after some treatment and she visited the same clinic again on the next day.

Her doctor recommended bee-sting injection to her, and she underwent an incision without a pre-test for allergy. A few minutes after the injection, she complained of chest pains and fever, then became shocked and unconscious.

She was then transferred to the hospital and died. The hospital diagnosed the cause of her death as anaphylactic shock. Anaphylactic shock is a shock that occurs within a few minutes to several hours due to an allergic reaction after contact with a specific antigen through food, medicine, pollen, or insects.

Her family said, "If the first aid after the shock was done properly in time, she would not have died. It is doubtful whether the treatment at the Korean Medicine clinic was appropriate."

Institutie for Science-Based Medicine

Please visit http://www.i-sbm.org, https://blog.naver.com/i-sbm

Korean Medicine Doctor Convicted for Fake Herbal Diabetic Medicines

The Supreme Court Korea recently convicted a Korean Medicine Doctor who manufactured and sold fake herbal diabetic medicines mixed with non-edible charcoal powder and specialty medicines.

The Supreme Court recently rejected the Korean Medicine Doctor's appeal for alleged violations of the Special Measures Law for the Control of Health Crimes(illegal drug manufacturing, etc.) and sentenced to two years and six months in prison and four months of robation, as well as a fine of 3,640 million KRW.

He illegally imported raw materials of diabetes medicines from China,. From March 2009 to December 2015, he produced about 3,399 kilograms of fake diabetic tablets and earned an unfair profit of 3.6 billion KRW.

His fake diabetic medicines, which he manufactured and sold, contained a special medication such as metformin and glibenclamide. It also contained charcoal powder.

According to the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law in Korea, prescription medicines can only be prescribed by doctors and dentists.

Korean Skeptics Put Traditional Korean Medicine to the Test

An event will be held to verify the validity of ‘pulse diagnosis’ or diagnosing patient’s latent disease by taking pulse from radius of the patient.

The Institute for Science-Based Medicine (ISBM), a private research and skeptics group, announced that it will be testing to see if those licensed to the Traditional Korean Medicine can actually make a successful diagnosis through 'pulse'.

ISBM announced 언제?, "Although medical science has developed remarkably, the principles and concepts such as 'Qi (energy flow), Yin and Yang, and Sasang Constitution' have not been proved scientifically. However, there are still many people trusting the 'pulse diagnosis' and spending a fortune on Traditional Korean Medicine. Moreover, the Korean Government has been spending huge budgets for the researching pulse testers."

"We believe Pulse has no diagnostic value and is just a façade for patients," ISBM said. "The evidence of pulse diagnosis in Traditional Korean Medicine is as weak and its mechanism is implausible. There are scarce clinical and scientific basis supporting the diagnostic value of pulse diagnosis" ISBM added.

The ISBM announced, "If there is a Traditional Korean Medicine practitioner who can determine the disease or predetermined condition (pregnancy, sex of fetus, etc.) that the normal doctors judge to be impossible without the aid of a medical tests or diagnosis, the ISBM will pay that Traditional Korean Medicine doctor KRW 50,000,000, equivalent to USD 45,000 as a reward." ISBM explained, "the qualification for the application is restricted to those who have license to practice in Traditional Korean Medicine.'

ISBM is a private research center in Korea, consisted of physicians and medical scientists. Its main goal is to scrutinize unscientific therapies by rigorously reviewing the clinical trials and systematic reviews.

- ISBM Korea

Why do Korean Medicine Doctors put fecal matter in treatment of dysmenorrhea in underprivileged girls?

Since the ancient times, Korean Medical Doctors (or Traditional Korean Medicine Doctors) have used the excrement of various animals including humans as medicine. Based on their traditional remedy, “According to the classic literature” as always cited by the Korean Medicine Doctors, every type of excrement is proven to be efficacious and should not be looked down for no specific reason.

Then, why not government control? It is somewhat puzzling to see that the Korean Government actually controls the quality of such “crap”. Government currently regulates standards of herbal medicine according to <Korean Pharmacopoeia> or <National Standard of Traditional Medicinal (Herbal and Botanical) Materials>. In order for Korean Medicine Doctors to use the medicinal herbs written here, they must be supplied through a company that has been certified by GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice). Natural substances not specified here can be used at Korean Traditional Doctor’s discretion without no government oversight.

It may be shocking to find out that the animal excrement is also specified in <National Standard of Traditional Medicinal (Herbal and Botanical) Materials>. They have used it for centuries. They are listed as Trogopterus xanthipes (or excrement of giant flying squirrel), or as Vespertilio superans (excrement of Vespertilio orientalis) and silkworm manure. Let alone it looks and sounds disgusting to see “crap” in medicine, would it be ok to use these “materials” without sound verification?

Every time scientists point out that the Korean Traditional herbal medicine must be verified, the Korean Medicine Doctors claim that Chinese/Korean traditional medicine has passed ‘the test of time’ and is already under governmental management. Recently, the Korean Medical Association (the normal doctors’ Association) has suggested that herbal medicines ingredients should be disclosed to patients as normal doctors do. Prescription for the patient to know and track what they are being treated with. The Korean Medicine Doctors Association (the Traditional doctors’ association) refuted with scorn that they are ‘already under strict management of the Korean Food and Drugs Administration and is only prescribing herbal medicines listed in Korean Pharmacopoeia and every herbal medicine has passed rigorous inspection and quality testing.

However, it seems disgusting that feces is listed as ‘normal’ pharmacologic agent. It also does not mean that Vespertilio superans has been tested for its safety. It has been previously found out that in purity analysis, there were notions that such contaminants as ‘no more than 15.0% is sand and other foreign materials has been mixed.’ This is what the Association of Korean Medicine Doctors (the traditional Korean Medical doctors) means by ‘quality inspection.’ Patients are worried about whether the Vespertilio superans is effective as medicine and safe to consume, and they are making fun of the Korean Traditional Doctors saying that the Vespertilio suprans only have less than 15% sand. Imagine if Tyrenol has 15% of sand as its ingredient.

If you search for the term feces in the <Home Medicine Integration> published during the Joseon Dynasty (or the 15^th to 19^th century medical book),, 159 sentences are searched. Our ancestors used various form of animal excrement as medicine including humans, dogs, cows, doves, cats, and horses. They have believed that various form of animal feces can cure disease in various conditions. That was ages before modern integration of safety and efficacy in medical field and few centuries before modern drugs testing was introduced.

One can only wonder then why doesn’t the Korean Government only regulate the feces of flying quarrels, baby bat, and silkworms? Why doesn’t it regulate other animals’ feces? It is only natural to think that the KTM doctors who believe in their literature to use and utilize such ‘crap’ is as effective and safe in treating what feces are meant to treat. Why limit on only squirrels, baby bat, and silkworms? Why not put human feces or dog feces, as prescribed in that literature, as ‘medicine’? As a matter of fact, there is no governmental regulation to ban the KTM doctors prescribing human feces or dog feces to treatment because it was once on the literature. When I-sbm’s staff asked Government reuglators in the Ministry of Health & Welfare, they answered vaguely. ‘No regulation to prohibit the usage of human excrement or dog excrement in KTM’.

Many asks that whether the feces can really be used as a prescription medicine. According to recent article released in <Oriental Medicine News>, Ulsan City in Southern part of Korea has implemented a city wide health program to treat 115 high school girls with dysmenorrhea in underprivileged area – with not NSAIDS or soft tissue relaxant but with oriental herbal medicine mostly containing Trogopterus xanthipes (or the excrement of giant flying squirrel).

http://www.akomnews.com/?p=391618

In order to use such extreme form of drugs as herbal medicine, not only the effectiveness but also the safety of such prescription must be scientifically verified before prescribing them to the underprivileged girls. At least, it is ethically sound the patient should know that they are being prescribed with excrements of animals to treat their disease and let the patient decide whether they want to be in such treatment.

It could hardly be imagined that high school girls have had information about the ingredient of the drugs, they’d refuse to consume such ‘medicine’. Could KTM doctors convince those girls to consume drugs containing feces? I guess not.

(Some have argued that getting expensive kopi Luwak, the part-digested coffee eaten and defecated by Asian palm civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus) is no more disgusting than consuming drugs containing animal feces. Let them know that in that kopi Luwak case, the feces is not consumed with coffee, but only the coffee beans washed of feces is used to brew the coffee. Moreover, the coffee drinkers drink for their exquisite taste, not for their medicinal efficacy. It is a different matter from using without patient knowledge of medicine which main ingredient is the feces itself and drinking partly digested coffee with prior knowledge that that coffee has been through palm civet’s digestive tract.) 

- Institution of Science-Based Medicine