SARS, Comparative Epidemiology and Jewels for the World

"Every time I think I'm out, they keep pulling me back in!"

I'm sure that many of you recognize this line from the Godfather III.
Yet, it seems so apropos here.

As I penned the previous post, I silently thought to myself that somehow I would be sharing this quote and the thought that Drug Resistant TB would pull me back into the arena. Sure enough, I guess the quest continues. Throughout so much of my life, in my search and exploration of Lupus across culture, time and space, I have been led. Thankfully, I must admit, the wolf prints have led me along so many paths, elicited introductions I could never have imagined and exposed me to "Comparative Epidemiology." Granted, this is not on the traditional sense as written about in most scientific articles presently. Nevertheless, it exists!

Comparative epidemiology is essentially why SARS was overcome in China with so few people actually stricken by SARS itself. Culture and Chinese Medicine played a very major role in the elimination of SARS. By examining the case studies from centuries and Millenia past, the Herbal Doctors designed several formulas as preventatives, based on constitution, symptoms, etc. Of course, they also treated those affected and were the first to achieve favorable results.
Vis-a-vis Western medicine, Chinese medicine harmonized the body more effectively.
On the preventative side, its flexibility allowed for quick moderations to address changes in symptoms, presentation thereof and a person's constitution type--meaning how certain people would react or not react to certain kinds of medicines and environmental factors.

Perhaps, the most important lesson for the world contained within SARS was the viability, modernity and applicability of Chinese Medicine within the face of a Pandemic. Of course, Chinese Medicine has also risen to meet the challenges of Drug-resistant Malaria. Artemnesia, wormwood, was used in China for more than 2, 000 years to treat Malaria. It is based on the Mawangdui scrolls that many have benefited.

Today, I believe, more than ever that the answers to the most pressing health problems lie within the tomes of case studies and the seemingly simplistic principles of Chinese Medicine and other systems of medicine, many of them ancient. Albeit, the body and classification of diseases are seen through different lenses. Nevertheless, they serve as a series of lenses through which to discriminate and discern a condition. Sometimes, they intersect those known within Western science. Sometimes, they simply elude of supercede them for more reasons than I can post within these few paragraphs. Yet, one thing is clear........we need more mutual respect, comparative epidemiology, more collaboration across medicines and more valuation of each other's medicines and worldviews. Hierarchy has no place when compared to the value of a life.