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Letters to the Editor
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Animal derived products
Bears need not suffer for our health
From Mr M. H. Espley, MRPharmS
This week on the BBC news there was a report concerning the continued
supply of products containing bear bile. Andy Fisher, the Metropolitan
Police’s wildlife liaison officer, said that this trade is illegal
because Asiatic black bears are an endangered species. He showed products
that contained bear bile that had been confiscated from Chinese herbalists
in the UK.
The Journal carried an article (16 September, 1995, p344) that referred
to two Chinese herbalists being prosecuted for selling products from endangered
species, eg, rhinoceros, tiger and the Asiatic black bear. It said that
further prosecutions would follow in Birmingham and Manchester: 11 in Birmingham
and three in Manchester.
In its newsletter (4 September, 2003),the World Society for Protection
of Animals (WSPA) said that, in April 2003, a police raid in London uncovered
a cache of bear and other animal products. According to Richard Ellis,
author of ‘Tiger bone and rhino horn’, ursodeoxycholic acid
(UDCA) was synthesised in 1954 from chickens and can be purchased for as
little as 16 cents per pill. However, practitioners of traditional Chinese
medicine (TCM) prefer to obtain it from bear gall bladders.
While Jill Johnson, the founder of Animals Asia, has rescued about 200
bears from farms in China, there are still about 7,000 more in China and
in South Korea, Taiwan, Laos and Vietnam suffering greatly in bear farms.
Many die as a result of infections caused by the use of catheters to extract
the bile.
This worldwide trade in bear bile, often in any country with a substantial
population of Asians, is of considerable concern. In the 1990s the Canadian
black bear population was greatly affected by the illegal trade and American
black bears and grizzly bears were being killed to fill the needs of TCM.
While it is true that there is a substantial illegal trade in tiger and
snow leopard skins, the demand for these animals and also bear bile for
use in TCM has had a disastrous affect. A recent survey failed to find
any snow leopards in the whole of China.
Richard Ellis, writing in The Times (9 April, 2005), says: “Some
clever entrepreneurs have figured out how to obtain bear bile from a living
bear — the technique is so awful for the bear that death for the
animal might be preferable.” He also says: “It is a terrible
anachronism that so many people today rely on largely ineffectual animal
related remedies, but the real tragedy is that large numbers of animals
have to die to provide these nostrums.”
He could have added that these are highly endangered animals.
Malcolm Espley
Tattenhall,
Cheshire
Correction
In this letter, Jill Robinson MBE, the founder of Animals Asia, was incorrectly referred to as Jill Johnson. |
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The
Pharmaceutical Journal