Abstract

Wildlife Protection: Laws, Regulations, and Ethics in Traditional Chinese Medicine

While Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) practice has disseminated rapidly worldwide and become popular, the use of wildlife animals in TCM products brought serious concerns among public which significantly hindered development of TCM. In modern society, laws and regulations have been established to protect wildlife usage in Chinese medicine. In the long history of TCM development, use of wildlife in TCM was controversial. In Tang Dynasty, “King of Chinese Medicine,” Sun Si Miao (581-682 AD) in his well-known classic “Da Yi Jing Cheng” –“Great Doctor of Medical Ethics” clearly stated his opposition against the using animal products in his prescriptions and strongly believed that the use of wildlife in TCM prescription was unethical.