Singapore to push major Chinese Medicine research
Singapore to push major Chinese Medicine research
By Ruth Youngblood
SINGAPORE (DPA): The 34-year-old woman patiently waits for hours at a Chinese medical clinic after years of Western conception treatments failed to result in the baby she and her husband so desperately want.
"I've been wanting to have a child for a long time," she said. "Hopefully, this will work for me."
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) facilities are suddenly surging in popularity among the young and better educated in Singapore, where the field has become the target of a major research push to plug the city-state into the fast-growing herbal product market.
Practitioners acknowledge China, Hong Kong and Taiwan are far ahead in TCM science and business inroads, but prospects of as much as US$100 million in government funding have ignited hopes for a strategic international niche.
At the Thong Chai Medical Institution, where practitioners are coping with a surge of patients from about 400 a day a few months ago to as many as 700, general manager Lee Siang attributed the low demand for TCM in the past to the preponderance of Western- trained physicians.
"We're all hoping the latest initiatives will be a success," said Lee. The 134-year-old TCM facility, the oldest in Singapore, has extended its hours to cope with needs of patients seeking help for everything from sprains, coughs and minor ailments to serious conditions.
As for the woman desperate for a baby, Lee noted the facility has a 20 percent success rate in treating infertility.
A task force formed by the Economic Development Board last July to evaluate opportunities in the field has come up with a $100 million proposal to plug Singapore into the TCM arena.
Dr. Cham Tao Soon, chairman of the task force and president of Nanyang Technological University, is still seeking feedback before finalizing the recommendations and submitting them to the Biomedical Research Council by the end of the year.
"China and Taiwan are very advanced, and Hong Kong is also moving very quickly," he observed. "Unless we do something, we will be left far behind."
He sees Singapore as playing a "bridging role" between the East and West in finding an appropriate methodology for measuring the efficiency of TCM drugs that will be acceptable to mainstream science.
Two main areas where Singapore can excel are quality control and clinical trials of TCM drugs, particularly on formulations and herbs imported from China, he said, noting trials borrowing Western methods will have more credibility if carried out here.
Twenty-five research projects are in progress, and clinical trials are soon to start on a TCM drug for lowering cholesterol.
Unlike China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, TCM is not yet taught at a university or practiced in hospitals in Singapore.
TCM schools offer six-year diploma courses, and students can complete part of their studies here before going to China to complete a bachelor's or master's degree at a TCM university.
The establishment of the first TCM university program is among the task force's recommendations. With TCM legislation passed last year, practitioners say confidence is soaring and the publicity surrounding the implementation of the new rules is attracting many first-timers.
The latest of the regulations governs TCM's ready-to-use forms, requiring labels in English and prohibiting effectiveness claims for 19 illnesses, including cancer, impotency and hypertension.
TCM practitioners must have credentials from recognized schools and pass a qualifying exam. There are 1,800 TCM practitioners in Singapore, and about 800 Chinese medicine and herbal shops.
Products wrapped in gold, burgundy and green packages beckon the converted and the curious at Eu Yan Sang's, the largest TCM company in Singapore. The company also has 25 outlets in Malaysia and 17 in Hong Kong.
Nostalgia pervades the flagship store, with plaques tracing its history back 122 years.