In Dennis Normile's article on traditional Chinese medicine (TCM)(“The new face of traditional Chinese medicine,” News Focus, 10 Jan., p. 188), Wallace Sampson maintains that relying on the traditional Chinese medicinal texts for hints to effective remedies for specific diseases is wishful thinking:“Those empirical observations on herbs are unreliable, fanciful, false,[and] irrelevant.” He does not cite any papers to back up this statement.

Such broad, unsupported claims are harmful to unbiased investigations into TCM. A number of recent studies support the efficacy and safety of some TCM herbal formulas. In addition, they have shown that these remedies worked effectively in some instances in which conventional Western therapies failed or proved to be insufficient to provide a palliative cure. For example, a randomized, nonblind, controlled clinical trial conducted in Japan showed that sho-saiko-to, an extract of seven Chinese herbs, helps prevent liver cancer in patients with cirrhosis (1). This is apparently the first treatment in any medical system that offers such benefits. Two double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trials were performed in Britain to evaluate the effect of Zemaphyte, a preparation of 10 herbs used by TCM practitioners for treating certain kinds of skin disease. In both studies, the formula produced impressive responses in treating severe, widespread atopic eczema that was resistant to conventional steroid therapies (2, 3).