As scientists race to develop a vaccine for Covid-19, Beijing has been championing traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) as a way to treat the disease.TCM’s supporters argue that there is no downside to using them but experts say rigorous scientific tests are needed before such formulas are deemed safe. “For TCM there is no good evidence and therefore its use is not just unjustified, but dangerous,” Edzard Ernst, a retired UK-based researcher of complementary medicines, was quoted as saying in Nature journal recently. But, Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, notes that “safety and efficacy issues plague TCM sector and most Chinese people still prefer modern medicine over TCM”.Critics say China is now using the pandemic as a way to promote it abroad – an accusation that has been denied in state media.
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