Bear bile harmful to human health, according to research released at major Beijing event

Animals Asia - Press Release

Update 12 Feb 2012: Drug firm draws fire from animal rights activists


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8 January 2012

The Chinese pharmaceutical industry was today called on to stop producing, promoting and selling bear bile from farmed bears at a high profile event in Beijing.

The Healing Without Harm campaign launched by Animals Asia, an organisation that rescues bears from bile farms in China and Vietnam, included talks from a range of experts who presented research showing that bear bile extracted from farmed bears should be considered unsafe, and that bear farming causes great cruelty to farmed bears.

Professor Jiang Qi, ex-vice president of the Shenyang Pharmaceutical University and deputy chief of the synthetic bear bile research institution, produced research results showing that synthetic bile produced by his team contained 40 percent ursodeoxycholic acid (UCDA), the active ingredient in bear bile that is known to have healing properties. Bile extracted from bears contained only 23 percent UDCA.

Professor Gao Yimin, an ex-member of the New Drug Evaluation Committee of China’s Health Ministry, a well-known Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) practitioner, spoke at the event calling on TCM practitioners to adopt synthetic substitutes in place of endangered animal products.

Toby Zhang, Director of External Affairs in China, Animals Asia commented: “Traditional Chinese Medicine has been practiced in China for thousands of years. It is a broad and profound science. Being harmonious with nature is a consistent theory that TCM has always stuck to. Using bear bile products produced by the bear farming industry obviously violates the harmonious spirit of the TCM, by not only causing unbearable suffering to the animals, but also threatening the health of those who consume them.”...

Source: Bear bile harmful to human health, according to research released at major Beijing event
Author: Animals Asia

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