CHINA HEALTH SCIENCES NEWSLETTER
Vol. 3 , No.11 - April 25, 2002
TOPICS THIS ISSUE:
- All Medical Adverts Banned In Shanghai
- World's First Liver Operation Successful
- CAS Develops Cancer Monitoring Biochip
- TCM Gene Database To Be Undertaken
- Japan Finances Program in Anhui to Fight TB
- First International Forum on Post-Genome Technology Held In Xian
- National Exposition on Medical Apparatus and Equipment Opens
- RMB 1 Billion to be Invested in Pharmaceutical Research Over 3 Years
- Chinese Exports Of Western Medicine Up 20% From Last Year
All Medical Adverts Banned In Shanghai
Any advertising of medical products has been banned in Shanghai after a study by the Shanghai chamber of commerce found 80 % of advertisements to be misleading or outright illegal.
The study, which monitored the advertisements of 20 different industries in newspapers, on television and radio discovered that 362 out of 453 medical advertisements did not meet the legal requirements of being "true, healthy, scientific and accurate."
On April 16th, Wu Min, an official with the Shanghai Municipal Administration of Industry and Commerce, said that all media and medical organizations have three months to stop publishing and issuing medical advertisements.
Wu Min stated that on April 16, 2001, all provincial or municipal-level public health administration departments were already prohibited from approving any more medical advertisements. Those advertisements already approved had a validity limit of only one year, with the result that all medical advertisements now seen are invalid or unlicensed.
Out of the 20 industry advertisements monitored, medical advertising was found to be by far the worst violator, with the alcohol industry being the next worst culprit, with 42 percent of flawed adverts.
(Source: BBC, Agence France Presse)
World's First Liver Operation Successful
Surgeons at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Hong Kong made medical history by safely operating on a patient's bile duct after removing the organ and her liver from her body.
The world's first successful operation of its kind meant that 27-year-old Wai Man was without a liver for five hours, while surgeons removed an advanced cancerous tumor attached to its bile duct. Ten months after the 15-hour surgery, Wai Man is said to be healthy and has resumed work as a salesperson.
There have been five previous attempts overseas to remove bile duct tumors since 1988 using the auto transplantation technique. Four patients died shortly after surgery while a fifth suffered a relapse and died eight and half months later.
A member of the medical team at the Chinese University in Hong Kong, surgery professor Lau Wan Yee, said the breakthrough could bring new hope to 200 patients with late-stage bile duct cancer each year in Hong Kong.
(Source: China.org.cn)
CAS Develops Cancer Monitoring Biochip
Hu Gengxi, a scientist from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), has succeeded in developing a unique cancer-testing biochip system. According to sources from the CAS, it is the first of its kind in the world. The breakthrough biochip has been certified by the State Drug Administration and been approved with an 80% accuracy rate in clinical examinations.
With new and emerging methods of treatment, cancer is no longer thought of as an incurable disease. In previous cancer examinations, using the conventional means such as X-ray, B-ultrasound and CT often had serious side effects on the patients and failed to produce inconclusive results.
The biochip, by being able to hold a mass of information in its system, can test many kinds of diseases in minutes by drawing 0.5ml of blood. It is becoming especially useful for the early detection of cancers, such as hepatic and pulmonary cancers and other complicated diseases.
(Source: china.org.con)
TCM Gene Database To Be Undertaken
Chinese scientists recently launched a herbal medicine gene database project combining traditional Chinese medical (TCM) science with gene technology.
At the 2002 International Human Genome Meeting held in Shanghai, Chen Zhu, director of the China Human Genome Center at Shanghai, said that gene technology will be used to decode the mysterious effects of traditional Chinese medicine.
The gene database will put more 5,000 effective elements of traditional Chinese medicine into the herbal medicine gene database. Chen Zhu said "Human genome technology has brought vital changes to the bio-pharmaceutical industry, and China will make it a platform to develop traditional Chinese medical science."
A Chinese scientist involved in the research said, "It's a tremendous project." It is hoped the project will allow researchers to interpret traditional Chinese medicine, which has successfully used mixtures of herbs, plants and animals to cure diseases with a rate that continues to baffle modern science.
"Traditional Chinese medicine has existed over thousands of years, and a qualified doctor must recite hundreds of prescriptions by heart which have been passed down for generations, before he practises medicine independently," said Wang Qiaochu of the Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
It is only within the past century that modern scholars have started to probe the mechanisms and elements of traditional Chinese medicine.
A gene researcher from Oxford University, Sir Walter Bodmer, said that the greatest difficulty in combining traditional Chinese medicine and gene technology is to detect which elements of traditional Chinese medicine are useful or futile. "This is why we should build a herbal medicine database first; we must find out the pathogenesis, which is an urgent task for all the world's top scholars gathered at the meeting," he added.
(Source: Asia Pulse)
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Japan Finances Program in Anhui to Fight TB
A tuberculosis (TB) control program funded by the Japanese government was recently launched in eastern China's Anhui Province.
Under a Sino-Japanese agreement signed in April 2001, Japan promised to give aid over the next five years to prevent and control tuberculosis in 11 provinces in China. In Anhui Province, 24 counties will benefit from the program. Japan has promised to give over RMB 2 million of equipment, such as drugs and microscopes, to be distributed within designated areas of Anhui.
Anhui is an area with an alarmingly high TB rate. The fourth national TB survey conducted in 2001 showed that 60,000 people die of TB in Anhui every year. Of these, 70% are young or middle-aged. Half the patients being treated for the disease are not able to complete treatment due to financial reasons.
(Source: Xinhua)
First International Forum on Post-Genome Technology Held In Xian
Experts from five countries attended the First International Forum on Post-Genome Technology in the former Chinese capital Xian. The forum covered issues such as biochip technology and its application, gene classification, gene mapping, biological informatics, and gene therapy.
The post-genome program was proposed as a further step by scientists in the study of the functions of genes after the completion of the Human Genome Project last year. Over 100 experts attended the forum.
On a related note, the Seventh international Human Genome Meeting (HGM) was held in Shanghai and ended on Wednesday, April 17. Yoshiyuke Sakaki, a 60-year-old professor with University of Tokyo, was elected to be the next chairman of Human Genome Organization and it was decided the eighth HGM will be held next year in Cancun, Mexico.
(Source: Xinhua, AsiaPulse)
National Exposition on Medical Apparatus and Equipment Opens
The five-day 47th National Spring Exposition on Medical Apparatus and Equipment opened in Xiamen on April 22nd.
For the first time, a Taiwanese delegation attended the meeting along with 44 delegations from Mainland China provinces, and a number of major companies. The event, first launched in 1979, is held twice a year. It is said to be the second largest event of its kind, after the MEDICA event held in Germany.
The 47th exposition has more than 2,500 kiosks covering 50,000 square meters. Exhibits include more than 10,000 types of medical apparatus and equipment in over 20 categories.
During the five-day exposition, meetings and seminars on the international medical apparatus market and other relevant subjects will be held.
(Source: Xinhua)
RMB 1 Billion to be Invested in Pharmaceutical Research Over 3 Years
The central government announced it will invest RMB 1 billion over the next 3 years in order to encourage domestic researchers and pharmaceutical companies to develop new drugs.
Yang Shengli, professor at the Shanghai Research Center for Biotechnology, said that the amount the government plans to spend on pharmaceutical research during the next three years is equal to ten times the amount spent from 1996-2000.
Director of the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica Chen Kaixian, said that if China really wants to develop its pharmaceutical industry, it must merge its smaller companies together in order to create firms large enough to handle the costs of a proper research program.
Although there are currently more than 6,000 pharmaceutical developers in China, less than 2% of the drug formulas on the domestic market are owned by these enterprises.
(Source: AFX-Asia)
Chinese Exports Of Western Medicine Up 20% From Last Year
The total of Western medicine and medical apparatus imported and exported in China in 2001 totaled US$ 7.44 billion, an increase of 20.35% from the previous year.
The China Chamber of Commerce for the Import and Export of Medicines and Health Products said that the import and export of Western medicine and medical apparatus accounted for almost 92% of the total foreign trade of medical and health care products.
Exports increased U12.66% to reach $ 4.07 billion. Imports increased 31% US$ 3.4 billion, resulting in a favorable balance of US$ 460 million.
China exported 229 different Western medicines and medical apparatus to 185 countries and regions. Eight products had an export value more than US$ 100 million, including blood pressure measurement units (US$ 114 million), unmixed Vitamin C and derivatives (US$153 million), citric acid (US$175 million), other unlisted antibiotics (US $182 million), non-retail herbicides (US$208 million), massage instruments (US$224 million), and absorbent cotton, gauze and bandages (US$258 million).
Concerning the regions to where the products were exported, 38.96% were exported to Asian countries, 26.53% to European countries and 20.47% to North American countries.
(Source: Asia Pulse)
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