TCM and the Eurocentric Vision

McCormick Templeton, PhD, DACM, MSOM | DIGITAL EXCLUSIVE

One of the things that makes acupuncture difficult to measure is the fact that the medicine does contain certain esoteric elements. Numerous studies demonstrate the neurochemical rationale for how acupuncture points stimulate the autonomic nervous system to generate change. However, not all the benefits of TCM can be easily measured by randomized controlled trials. But does that make them fundamentally and definitively false?

To believe that our understanding of science is fixed and unchanging is to assume a divine perfection over humanity as it exists at this moment, a perfection that was somehow inaccessible to all who have gone before us. In a certain sense, the effective use of TCM depends on the body’s ability to heal itself, with the practitioner acting as a channel using various tools to stimulate the body to initiate the healing process. And part of this healing process is currently somewhat mysterious, but I suspect that this self-healing process is partly why TCM is often so effective in treating conditions considered impenetrable or even untreatable with allopathic drugs.

No one is advocating that someone should have acupuncture instead of going to the emergency room when their appendix bursts, but countless people suffering from conditions considered incurable or psychosomatic have found relief with this medicine.

Instead of relying solely on biomedical testing standards to determine the efficacy of TCM, how about opening ourselves to broader perspectives on perception and reality? Anil Seth, a neuroscientist and professor of computational cognitive science, argues that our understanding of reality is less fixed and objective than many of us think. He states:

“Instead of perception being highly dependent on signals flowing into the brain from the outside world, it is just as dependent, if not more so, on perceptual predictions flowing in the opposite direction. We do not just passively perceive the world. We actively generate it. The world we experience comes just as much, if not more, from the inside out than from the outside in.”

Our understanding of all kinds of perception is currently changing. With this in mind, what would happen if Westerners – just for a moment – stooped to consider cultural traditions outside their own boundaries without paternal superiority? What would happen if we stepped out of our Eurocentric paradigms and considered another perspective? We might, perhaps, discover something useful for ourselves?

In China, TCM is integrated into the health care system, with hospitals dedicated exclusively to TCM (e.g. Beijing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine). According to Xu and Yang (2008), 90% of regular hospitals have a dedicated TCM department, and prior to the development of vaccines, TCM herbal medicine was used prophylactically against Covid-19 in Chinese hospitals, apparently with positive results.

Is this kind of use of a traditional medicine based entirely on magical thinking? Does it not seem Eurocentric or even xenophobic to dismiss this medicine as “pseudoscience” when so many non-Western people choose to use it?

With the inclusion of TCM in the ICD-11 codes and the WHO Strategy for Traditional Medicine, modest steps in the right direction are being taken. However, just because the WHO recommends something does not mean it will be implemented in the United States. One need only look at the discrepancy between the WHO’s recommendations on herbal supplements and the FDA’s non-interventionist attitude toward them to see that this is the case.

But even if TCM were integrated into the US health care system, who’s to say what that integration would look like? In the 1990s, after a research expedition to Samoa, an American scientist “discovered” a plant that he used to isolate the chemical compound prostratin. This compound is an antiviral of great interest in the treatment of AIDS and HIV, but, in its original form from the bark of the mamala tree, it has been used by Samoans for centuries as an antipyretic.

According to Cornell researcher Dr. Giulia Friso, after this discovery, “derivatives of the organic compound were patented, and Samoans were excluded from using and producing their inherited knowledge.” Steps have been taken to correct this, but it is a lesson in cultural imperialism that should not be ignored.

Traditional East Asian medicine works. And because it works, it will eventually be integrated into our own healthcare system. We already see this happening. But will it be integrated in a way that respects the history of this medicine and the cultures that created it, or will it be colonized, repackaged and sold with a Western name and the smiling faces of people who claim to have “discovered” it? It remains to be seen.

References

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