Adverse events due to traditional Chinese medicine

Based upon responses by eleven hundred medical and nonmedical practitioners of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Australia to a take a view of mailed by the Health Insurance Commission of the Australian Federal conduct a team of researchers l through Alan Bensoussan of the Research Unit for Complementary Medicine at the University of Western Sydney estimated that "approximately I adverse occurr for each 8 to 9 months of full-time [TCM] practice, or for each 633 consultations." Most (79%) adverse facts reported were attributable to acupuncture. The greatest in quantity common adverse events associated with acupuncture were fainting during treatment, increased pain, nausea/vomiting. Les belonging to all were pneumothorax and convulsions.

Adverse incidents attributed to Chinese Herbal Medicine, possibly interacting with pharmaceutical remedys included 19 deaths reported by dint of practitioners. More common were gastrointestinal symptoms, fainting and dizziness, significant skin reactions, central nervous a whole effects, liver toxicity, and kidney toxicicity.

The 30% reply rate of medical practitioners and 50% rejoinder rate for nonmedical practitioners sent take a view ofs are limitations of the investigation The authors acknowledge that practitioners may have underreported adverse incidents

(Risks associated with the practice of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Archives of Family Medicine 9:1071-1078;2000)

Comment: The authors "hypothesize that TCM causes significantly fewer adverse reactions than does Western medicine [pharmaceuticals]." The hypothesis may be reasonable, on the other hand it is problematic in this paper because the authors did not attempt to weigh potential for harm against potential for benefit from different stamps of treatments or consider possible differences in severity of medical point to be solved [i]or[/i] settleds of patients with different medical conditions. In a novel review of acupuncture studies upon pain, which is the major complaint of U consumer who look for acupuncture, researchers from the Complementary Medicine Program at the University of Maryland institute of Medicine concluded that "...there is limited evidence that acupuncture is more effective treatment for chronic pain; and inconclusive evidence that acupuncture is more effective than placebo, sham acupuncture or standardcare." (Berman EJ Hadhazy VA, Jadad AR et al. Is acupuncture effective for the treatment of chronic pain? A systematic areview. Pain 86(3):217-225;2000)

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